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Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899

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Title: Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899

Author: Various

Editor: William Jay Youmans


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, MAY 1899 ***

  Established by Edward L. Youmans

              APPLETONS'
           POPULAR SCIENCE
               MONTHLY

              EDITED BY
         WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS

               VOL. LV

        MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899

              NEW YORK
       D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
                1899




          COPYRIGHT, 1899,
     BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.




[Illustration: WILLIAM PENGELLY.]




APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

MAY, 1899.




ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE.

A JOURNEY TO THE NEW ELDORADO.

BY ANGELO HEILPRIN,

PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF
PHILADELPHIA, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.


I.--IN BY THE WHITE PASS AND OUT BY THE CHILKOOT.

Hardly two years ago the names Dawson and Klondike were entirely
unknown to the outside world, and geographers were as ignorant of
their existence as was at that time the less learned laity. To-day it
may be questioned if any two localities of foreign and uncivilized
lands are as well known, by name at least, as these that mark the
approach to the arctic realm in the northwest of the American
continent. One of those periodic movements in the history of peoples
which mark epochs in the progress of the world, and have their source
in a sudden or unlooked-for discovery, directed attention to this new
quarter of the globe, and to it stream and will continue to stream
thousands of the world's inhabitants. Probably not less than from
thirty-five thousand to forty thousand people, possibly even
considerably more, have in the short period following the discovery of
gold in the Klondike region already passed to or beyond the portals of
what has not inaptly been designated the New Eldorado. To some of
these a fortune has been born; to many more a hope has been shattered
in disappointment; and to still more the arbiter of fate, whether for
good or for bad, has for a while withheld the issue.

In its simplest geographical setting Dawson, this Mecca of the north,
is a settlement of the Northwest Territory of Canada, situated at a
point thirteen hundred miles as the crow flies northwest of Seattle.
It is close to, if not quite on, the Arctic Circle, and it lies the
better part of three hundred miles nearer to the pole than does St.
Petersburg in Russia. By its side one of the mighty rivers of the
globe hurries its course to the ocean, but not too swiftly to permit
of sixteen hundred miles of its lower waters being navigated by craft
of the size of nearly the largest of the Mississippi steamers, and
five hundred miles above by craft of about half this size. In its own
particular world, the longest day of the year drawls itself out to
twenty-two hours of sunlight, while the shortest contracts to the same
length of sun absence.

During the warmer days of summer the heat feels almost tropical; the
winter cold is, on the other hand, of almost the extreme Siberian
rigor. Yet a beautiful vegetation smiles not only over the valleys,
but on the hilltops, the birds gambol in the thickets, and the tiny
mosquito, either here or near by, pipes out its daily sustenance to
the wrath of man. The hungry forest stretches out its gnarled and
ragged arms for still another hundred or even three hundred miles
farther to the north.

Up to within a few years the white man was a stranger in the land, and
the Indian roamed the woods and pastures as still do the moose and
caribou. To-day this has largely changed. The banks of the once silent
river now give out the hum of the sawmill, the click of the hammer,
and the blast of the time-whistle, commanding either to rest or to
work. A busy front of humanity has settled where formerly the grizzly
bear lapped the stranded salmon from the shore, and where at a still
earlier period--although perhaps not easily associated with the
history of man--the mammoth, the musk ox, and the bison were masters
of the land. The red man is still there in lingering numbers, but his
spirit is no longer that which dominates, and his courage not that of
the untutored savage.

The modern history of Dawson begins with about the middle of 1896,
shortly after the "public" discovery of gold in the Klondike tract.
Three or four months previous there was hardly a habitation, whether
tent or of logs, to deface the landscape, and the voice of animate
Nature was hushed only in the sound of many waters. At the close of
the past year, as nearly as estimate can make it, there were probably
not less than from fourteen thousand to fifteen thousand men, women,
and children, settled on the strip of land that borders the Yukon,
both as lowland and highland, for about two miles of its course near
the confluence of the Klondike. Many of these have located for a
permanence, others only to give way to successors more fortunate than
themselves. Some of the richest claims of the Bonanza, now a famed
gold creek of the world, are located hardly twelve miles distant, and
the wealth of the Eldorado is discharged within a radius of less than
twenty miles. Over the mountains that closely limit the head springs
of Bonanza and Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion, and Sulphur Creeks
thread their own valleys of gold in deep hollows of beautiful
woodland--fascinating even to-day, but already badly scarred by the
work that man has so assiduously pressed in the region. This is the
Klondike, a land full of promise and of equal disappointment, brought
to public notice in the early part of 1897, when intelligence was
received by the outside world regarding the first important gold
location on Bonanza Creek in August of the year previous.

[Illustration: LOOKING DOWN THE LYNN CANAL--SKAGUAY RIVER, WITH
SKAGUAY ON THE LEFT.]

On the 24th of July of the past year I found myself on the principal
thoroughfare of Skaguay, the ubiquitous Broadway, contemplating a
journey to the new north. The route of travel had been determined for
me in part by the non-arrival at Seattle of the expected steamers from
the mouth of the Yukon River, and by that woeful lack of knowledge
regarding "conditions" which so frequently distinguishes steamship
companies. It was to be, therefore, the overland route, and from
Skaguay it was merely the alternative between the White Pass and the
Chilkoot Pass or Dyea trails. The two start from points barely four
miles apart, cross their summits at very nearly the same distance from
one another, and virtually terminate at the same body of inland water,
Lake Lindeman, the navigable head of the great Yukon River. A more
than generous supply of summer heat gave little warning of that bleak
and severe interior with which the world had been made so well
familiar during the last twelvemonth, and from which we were barely
six hundred miles distant; nor did the character of the surroundings
betray much of an approach to the Arctic Circle. Mountains of aspiring
elevations, six thousand to seven thousand feet, most symmetrically
separated off into pinnacles and knobs, and supporting here and there
enough of snow to form goodly glaciers, look down upon the narrow
trough which to-day is the valley of the Skaguay River. At the foot of
this ancient fiord lies the boom town of Skaguay. Charming forests,
except where the hand of man has leveled the work of Nature to suit
the requirements of a constructing railway, yet clothe the mountain
slopes and fill in the gap that lies between them, shadowing the dense
herbage and moss which almost everywhere form an exquisite carpeting
to the underlying rock. The ear may catch the strains of a few
mosquitoes, or the mellow notes of the robin or thrush, but rising far
above these in the majesty of tone and accent is the swish of the
tumbling cataracts which bring the landscape of Norway to America.
Man, it is claimed, is much the same the world over; but there is a
limitation. The second habitation of white man in Skaguay was
established less than a year before my visit; yet at that time,
presumably to meet the demands of a resident population of nearly five
thousand, and of the wandering hordes pressing to the interior, the
destructive hand of the advertiser had already inscribed on the walls
of rock, in characters twenty feet or more in height, and sufficiently
elevated to make them nearly the most conspicuous elements of the
landscape, the glories of cigars, the value of mental and physical
specifics, and of other abominations which were contrived to fatten
the Yankee pocket.

[Illustration: A SUMMER DAY ON THE SKAGUAY.]

Had it not been for the kindly advice of one who had just returned
from the Klondike, and who claimed to have crossed both passes fifty
times, I should almost unhesitatingly have taken the White Pass trail;
but the representation that beyond the summit the mud would be
neck-deep and virtually impenetrable for a distance of twenty miles or
more, cast the decision in favor of the Chilkoot. The fortunate or
unfortunate circumstance that a billowy sea made a landing of
passengers at Dyea impossible on that day threw me back upon my first
resource, and about two hours before midday of the 30th I was mounted
on a horse following out the Skaguay trail. By seven o'clock in the
evening of the following day I had reached Lake Lindeman, and about a
half hour later Lake Bennett, the starting point of the lines of Upper
Yukon steamers which had just recently been established. We had made
the forty miles of the dreaded White Pass trail without serious
hindrance or delay, up over the summit of 2,860 feet elevation, and
down over a course which was depicted in colors of hardship that would
have done more truthful service in describing a pass in the Himalayas.
There was no mud, not a trace of snow or ice except on the mountain
declivities, and had it not been for a horse that was both stiff and
lame, and required my attention as pedestrian to an extent that had
not been bargained for, the journey would have been an exceptionally
delightful one.

It is true that an unfortunate fall at one time almost deprived me of
my animal, but the service of tackle soon put him to rights and to his
feet, and but few blood marks were left on the rocks to tell of the
struggle. The most disagreeable incident of the journey was a dense
and shifting fog, which so blocked out the landscape of early evening
as to necessitate "feeling" the brokenness of a glaciated country in
order to ascertain wherein lay the trail. But beyond this there was a
perpetual delight in the landscape--in the narrow rocky defile, the
bursting torrent, the open meadows, with their carpet of green and
variegated with fireweed, gentian, rose, and forget-me-not, which more
than compensated for the little vexations that allied themselves with
the journey.

[Illustration: COMING DOWN THE WHITE PASS--WINTER.]

It is not often that the selection of a route of travel is determined
by the odorous or malodorous qualities which appertain thereto. Such a
case was, however, presented here. It was not the depth of mud alone
which was to deter one from essaying the White Pass route; sturdy
pioneers who had toiled long and hard in opening up one or more new
regions, laid emphasis upon the stench of decaying horse-flesh as a
factor of first consideration in the choice of route. So far as stench
and decaying horse-flesh were concerned, they were in strong evidence.
The Desert of Sahara, with its lines of skeletons, can boast of no
such exhibition of carcasses. Long before Bennett was reached I had
taken count of more than a thousand unfortunates whose bodies now made
part of the trail; frequently we were obliged to pass directly over
these ghastly figures of hide, and sometimes, indeed, broke into them.
Men whose veracity need not be questioned assured me that what I saw
was in no way the full picture of the "life" of the trail; the
carcasses of that time were less than one third of the full number
which in April and May gave grim character to the route to the new
Eldorado. Equally spread out, this number would mean one dead animal
for every sixty feet of distance! The poor beasts succumbed not so
much to the hardships of the trail as to the inhuman treatment, or
lack of care and assistance, which they received on the part of their
owners. Once out of the line of the mad rush, perhaps unable to
extricate themselves from the holding meshes of soft snow and of
quagmires, they were allowed to remain where they were, a food
offering to the army of carrion eaters which were hovering about,
only too certain of the meal which was being prepared for them.
Oftentimes pack saddles, and sometimes even the packs, were allowed to
remain with the struggling or sunken animal--such was the mad race
which the greed of gold inspired.

On October 9th I was again at Bennett, this time returning from my
journey into the interior, and full of experience of what steam
navigation on the upper six hundred miles of Yukon waters might mean.
There was now a change in the sentiment regarding the quality of the
two passes. The Pacific and Arctic Railway, the pioneer of Alaska
steam railways, was operating twelve miles of track, and had thus
materially reduced the "hardships" of the Skaguay trail; the Chilkoot,
on the other hand, was represented to be in the worst of mood, and
prepared to put the passing traveler into the same condition. It was
more than late in the season, but the winter's blasts had been stayed
off by a full month, and there were still no signs of their coming. A
little ice had begun to form along the river's margin and over
sheltered pools, and an occasional cool night made demands for
moderately warm clothing proper; but, on the whole, the temperature
was mild and balmy, and to its influence responded a vegetation which
in its full glory might easily have called to mind the region of the
Juniata.

[Illustration: CUTTING GRADE FOR THE PACIFIC AND ARCTIC
RAILWAY--TUNNEL MOUNTAIN, WHITE PASS ROUTE.]

Although strongly warned against taking the Chilkoot Pass so late in
the season, many of the outgoers, whose recollections of events in the
early part of the year were still vividly fresh, and who could not be
persuaded that the period of a few months had so effaced the
conditions of the past as to permit a steam railway to enter for
twelve miles into the region, chose it in preference to the White
Pass. My own mind had been cast in the same direction; not, however,
from a point of judicious preference, but merely because I was anxious
to see for myself that which had become historic in the movement of
1898, and of instituting a direct comparison of the physical features
and general characteristics of the two routes. With no serious
hindrance, the journey from Bennett out was that of a full day only,
and there was no particular reason to suspect that there would be
delay. Snow had fallen on the summit and whitened all the higher
points, but seemingly it hung in only a measurably thin crust, and
with not enough to necessitate breaking a trail.

A crude steam ferry across Lake Lindeman cuts off about six miles from
the first part of the trail, after which a rapidly rising path,
sufficiently distinct to permit it to be easily followed, winds over
the rocks and among rock _débris_ to Long Lake, situated at an
elevation of some twenty-six hundred feet, where night shelter is
found in a fairly comfortable tent. Up to this point we had
encountered but little snow, and the condition of the trail was such
as to allow of rapid travel. A wise caution detained us here for the
night, and the incoming of a solitary traveler warned us that a
blizzard had struck the summit of the pass, and buried it beneath a
heavy mantle of snow. Had we been a day earlier we might have crossed
dry shod, a very exceptional condition at this time of the year, but
now the possibilities of a struggle gravely presented themselves. A
light frost of the night had fairly congealed the soil, but the lake
did not carry enough surface ice to interfere with the progress of a
scow, and we reached the farther end without difficulty. The two-mile
portage to Crater Lake was largely a snow traverse, but an easy one;
at this time, however, it began to snow heavily, and the immediate
prospect was anything but cheerful. A low fog hung over the waters,
but not so low or so dense as to prevent us from occasionally catching
glimpses of the rocks which projected with disagreeable frequency from
an assumed bottomless pit or "crater." The ascent from Crater Lake to
the summit, somewhat less than three hundred and fifty feet, was made
in about half an hour, and then began the steep and sudden plunge
which marks the southern declivity of this famous mountain pass. Some
little caution was here required to keep a foothold, and a too sudden
break might have led to an exhilarating, even if not anxiously sought
after, glissade; but in truth, to any one only moderately practiced in
mountaineering, even this steep face, which descends for a thousand
feet or more from a summit elevation of thirty-four hundred feet,
presents little difficulty and hardly more danger. What there is of a
trail zigzags in wild and rapid courses over an almost illimitable
mass of rock _débris_, at times within sheltered or confined hollows,
but more generally on the open face of the declivity. This it is more
particularly that carries to many a certain amount of fear in the
making of the passage, but, with proper caution and the right kind of
boots, nothing of danger need be apprehended.

Unfortunately for the enjoyment of the scenery of the pass, I could
see but a modest part of it. Although snow was no longer falling, and
the atmosphere had settled down to a condition of almost passive
inactivity--much to the surprise, if not disappointment, of a few who
had prophesied a stiff and biting wind the moment we passed the
divide--heavy cloud banks hovered about the summits, and only at
intervals did they afford glimpses of the majestic mountain peaks by
which we were surrounded. Enough, however, could be seen to justify
for the pass the claims of most imposing scenery, and its superiority
in this respect over the White Pass. The temperature at the time of
our crossing was a few degrees below freezing, perhaps 25° or 27° F.,
but our rapid walk brought on profuse perspiration, and it would have
been a pleasure, if a sense of proper caution had permitted, to divest
ourselves of mackinaws and travel in summer fashion. We made Sheep
Camp, with its surroundings of beautiful woodland, shortly after noon,
and Cañon City, which, as the terminus of a good coach road to Dyea,
virtually marks the end or beginning of the Chilkoot trail, at two
o'clock.

[Illustration: THE FINAL ASCENT TO CHILKOOT SUMMIT--WINTER.]

To a mountaineer or traveler of ordinary resource neither the White
Pass nor the Chilkoot Pass will appear other than it actually
is--i. e., a mountain pass, sufficiently rough and precipitous in
places, and presenting no serious obstacle to the passage of man,
woman, or child. True, I did not see them at their worst, but they
were both represented to be frightfully bad even at the time of my
crossing. The seasonal effects, doubtless, do much to modify the
character of the trails, and even local conditions must mold them to a
very considerable extent. It is not difficult to conceive of miry
spots along the White Pass trail, or of snow-swept areas on the
Chilkoot, and there certainly must be times when both trails are in a
measure or way impassable. All trails are, however, subject to
modifications in character, and even the best is at times sufficiently
bad. Trains of pack animals cross the White Pass both winter and
summer, and, even with the great loss to their "forefathers," their
testimony of steady work is a recommendation of the class of service
in which they are engaged. A limited number of cattle and horses have
also found their way over the summit of the Chilkoot Pass--some
crossing immediately after us--but the trail is too steep on the ocean
side to fit it for animal service, although I strongly suspect that
were the location in Mexico instead of in Alaska, there would be a
goodly number of _caballeros_ and _arrieros_ to smile at the
proposition of presented difficulties. Indian women seem to consider
it no hardship to pack a fifty-pound sack of flour and more over the
summit, and there are many men who do not hesitate to take double this
load, and make several journeys during the same day. It is the load
that kills, and it was, doubtless, this influence, united to a cruel
method, which so strongly impressed the pioneers with the notion of
extreme hardship. The most level and perfect road, to one carrying for
miles a pack of from sixty to eighty pounds, soon begins to loom up a
steep incline.

Both the northern and southern slopes of the Chilkoot Pass are largely
surfaced with shattered rocks, over which, with occasional deflections
across more pleasant snow banks, a fairly well-defined trail mounts on
either side to the summit. In its grim landscape effects, more
particularly on the inner face, where a number of rock-bound
tarns--Crater Lake, Long Lake, Deep Lake--afford a certain relief to
the degree of desolation which the scene carries, it reminded me much
of the famous Grimsel Pass, and here as well as there the modeling of
the surface through glacial action was strongly in evidence. The
vastly towering Alpine peaks were, however, wanting, and the glaciers
that still appeared showed that they had long since passed their
better days. The actual summit is trenched by a narrow rocky gap,
roughly worn through walls of granite, and by it have passed the
thousands who have pressed to the interior. There is no timber growth
at or near this summit, nor is there soil sufficient to give support
to an arboreal vegetation. Nearest to the top line a prostrate form of
scrubby hemlock (_Tsuga Pattoniana_) alone makes pretense to being a
tree, but below it of itself grows to majestic proportions, and about
"Sheep Camp," with Menzie's spruce, a birch, and cottonwood (_Populus
balsamifera_), forms part of the beautiful woodland, which with
ever-increasing freshness descends to the lower levels.

Lest I be accused of too freely seeing the beauties of the northern
landscape, I venture in my defense the following graphic description
of the Dyea Valley from the pen of another traveler and geologist,
Prof. Israel Russell: "In the valley of the Taiya the timber line is
sharply drawn along the bordering cliffs at an elevation of about
twenty-five hundred feet. Above that height the mountain sides are
stern and rugged; below is a dense forest of gigantic hemlocks,
festooned with long streamers of moss, which grows even more
luxuriantly than on the oaks of Florida. The ground beneath the trees
and the fallen monarchs of the forest are densely covered with a soft,
feathery carpet of mosses, lichens, and ferns of all possible tints of
brown and green. The day I traversed this enchanted valley was bright
and sunny in the upper regions, but the valley was filled with
drifting vapors. At one minute nothing would be visible but the somber
forest through which the white mist was hurrying; and the next the
veil would be swept aside, revealing with startling distinctness the
towering mountain spires, snowy pinnacles, and turquoise cliffs of ice
towering heavenward. These views through the cloud rifts seemed
glimpses of another world. Below was a sea of surging branches that
filled all the valley bottom and dashed high on the bordering cliffs.
Much space could be occupied with descriptions of the magnificent
scenery about Lynn Canal, and of the wonderful atmospheric effects to
be seen there, but the poetry of travel is foreign to these pages, and
must be left for more facile pens."

[Illustration: THE CHILKOOT TRAIL--POWER HOUSE OF THE AËRIAL TRAMWAY.]

In its present condition the Chilkoot trail has the advantage over the
Skaguay in its shorter length, the distance from Dyea to the head of
Lake Lindeman, the virtual head of river navigation, being about
twenty-four miles; from Skaguay to Bennett, along the usual White Pass
trail, the distance is fully ten or twelve miles longer, although a
cut-off by way of the summit lakes reduces the traverse considerably.
At intervals along both routes fairly good accommodation can now be
had. One condition of the Chilkoot Pass, and that a not altogether
light one, places it during certain months at a disadvantage as
compared with the White Pass. I refer to the dangers from avalanches.
These are of the true Alpine type, having their source in the heavy
beds of snow which cling with bare support to the steeply pitching
mountain walls, in places along some of the narrowest parts of the
pass. The appalling catastrophe of April, 1898, which caused the loss
of sixty-three lives, and followed closely upon an earlier event of
like nature, had its seat in the steep, rocky ledges of the east wall
between Sheep Camp and the Scales. It is claimed that the Indians
along the trail clearly foresaw the impending event, and announced it
in unmistakable language, but their warnings were allowed to go
unheeded. They themselves did not make the traverse on that day. The
minor disaster of the following December (9th), when but six lives
were sacrificed, took place on the steep declivity which faces Crater
Lake, not far from the service house of the Chilkoot Pass Aërial
Tramway Company. Here the mountain face is very precipitous and gives
but insecure lodgment to the snow. The Indians carefully watch all
natural signals and urge a rapid journey. However useful these trails
may have been in the past, how well or how indifferently they may have
met the wants of the pioneers of 1897 and 1898, they are destined
before long to be thrown into that same obscurity which they held when
the Indians and a few adventurous trappers and traders alone made use
of them as avenues of communication between the inner and outer
worlds. The advance of the iron horse is now an assured fact, and the
Pacific and Arctic Railway, whose construction is engineered by some
of the most experienced mechanical talent of Great Britain and
America, will minister before many months not alone to the
professional interlopers in the new land, but to hosts of tourists as
well. The road, which in reaching White Pass summit will have a
maximum gradient of a little more than five per cent, is of
narrow-gauge construction, solidly supported on dressed ties brought
from the forests of Oregon. No terminal appears to have been as yet
definitely determined upon, although the charter act recites Fort
Selkirk on the Yukon, about one hundred and sixty miles above Dawson,
as such. Operating as it now does sixteen miles or more of road, it is
already an extensive freight carrier; but until its completion to
Bennett or to some point close to a navigable part of the Yukon River,
the Chilkoot Pass tramway, a remarkable construction which crosses
over the summit and deposits at Crater Lake, must continue to handle a
large part of the business intended for the interior.

[Illustration: SUMMIT OF THE CHILKOOT PASS, WITH IMPEDIMENTA OF
PROSPECTORS, APRIL, 1898.]

It is safe to say that the stirring scenes which were enacted on the
passes during the winter of 1897-'98, when the impedimenta of travel
and occupation were packed together in the manner of an army camp,
will not be repeated again. The past history was a short one, and it
gives way to one of greater promise.


     NOTE.--For most of the photographic illustrations the author is
     indebted to the work of Curtis, Barley, and E. A. Hegg;
     especially to the last-named gentleman, of Skaguay and Dawson, is
     he under obligations for permission to use several of the
     copyrighted views.




THE ORIGIN OF EUROPEAN CULTURE.[A]

BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH. D.,

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY, BOSTON, LECTURER IN ANTHROPOLOGY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
NEW YORK.


Prehistoric archæology is possessed of a distinct advantage over
linguistics in the investigation of racial problems; for human remains
are often discovered in connection with the implements, utensils, or
trinkets by which the civilization of an extinct people is
archæologically determined. To attempt even an outline of the cultural
history of Europe would be obviously impossible in this place. It
would fill a complete volume by itself alone. Furthermore, the short
span of forty years since the inception of archæological science has
not sufficed to produce complete unanimity of opinion among the
leading authorities. Many important questions, especially concerning
eastern Europe, are still awaiting settlement. All that we can hope to
do is to describe what may be termed a few fixed points in European
cultural history. This, as in our discussion of physical origins,[B]
we shall attempt to do by means of definite propositions, concerning
which there is now substantial agreement.

I. _In western and southern Europe an entirely indigenous culture
gradually evolved during the later stone age. This was characterized
by great technical advance in fashioning implements, carvings, and
designs in stone, bone, ivory, and copper; by the construction of
dolmens and habitations of stone; by pottery-making; and possibly even
by a primitive system of writing._

A marked reaction has taken place during the last ten years among
archæologists respecting the course of cultural development in France.
It was long believed that after the first crude attempts of the
palæolithic epoch an extended _hiatus_ ensued, followed by the sudden
appearance of a more highly developed civilization, brought by an
immigrant broad-headed race from the East. Two waves of invasion were
described: the first bringing polished stone, a later one introducing
bronze, cereals, agriculture, and the domestication of animals. Not
even credit for the construction of the great stone dolmen tombs was
granted to the natives in Gaul, for these were all ascribed to an
invasion from the North. The undoubted submergence of the primitive
long-headed population of France by a brachycephalic type from the
East, to which we have already adverted, was held accountable for a
radical advance in civilization. Even the existence of a bronze age
was denied to this country, it being maintained that the introduction
of bronze was retarded until both metals came in together from the
Orient in the hands of the cultural deliverers of the land. The
absence of a distinct bronze age was speedily disproved; but the view
that France and western Europe were saved from barbarism only by a new
race from the East still held sway. It is represented by the classical
school of G. de Mortillet, Bertrand, Topinard, and a host of minor
disciples. The new school, holding that a steady and uninterrupted
development of culture _in situ_ was taking place, is represented
notably by Reinach[C] in France and by Sergi[D] in Italy. Their proof
of this seems to be unanswerable. Granting that it is easier to borrow
culture than to evolve it, a proposition underlying the older view, it
seems nevertheless that the West has too long been denied its rightful
share in the history of European civilization.

[Illustration: NEOLITHIC IVORY CARVING. Mas d'Azil.

(By special permission. Further reproduction prohibited.)]

A notable advance in the line of culture entirely indigenous to
southwestern Europe has been lately revealed through the interesting
discoveries by Piette at the station of Brassempuoy and in the grotto
of Mas d'Azil. Carvings in ivory, designs upon bone, evidence of a
numerical system, of settled habitations, and, most important of all,
of a domestication of the reindeer, of the horse, and the ox in the
pure stone age have been found; and that, too, in the uttermost
southwestern corner of Europe. In the lake dwellings of Switzerland,
as also in Scandinavia, a knowledge of agriculture, pottery, and the
domestication of animals is evinced, likewise as a native discovery.
From other quarters of the continent in the stone age comes similar
testimony to a marked advance of man culturally. The justly celebrated
carving of a reindeer from Thayngen, almost worthy of a modern
craftsman, betrays no mean artistic ability. The man who drew it was
far from being a savage, even if he knew no metals, and buried his
dead instead of cremating them. The evidence as to early domestication
of animals is perhaps the most startling. Carved horses' heads, with
halters and rude bridles, have been surely identified by Piette and
others.

[Illustration: BONE CARVING. Thayngen. (After Bertrand, 1891.)]

A system of writing seems also to have been invented in western Europe
as far back as the stone age.[E] Letourneau and Bordier have advanced
good evidence to this effect, although it is not yet incontestably
proved. The Phoenicians were perhaps antedated in their noted
invention by the dolmen builders, by the lake dwellers of the earliest
times, and, according to Sergi, also by the people of the Villanova
pre-Etruscan culture in Italy. In an earlier time still in the Po
Valley, as far back as the stone-age _Terramare_ period, pottery was
made, and that, too, of a very decent sort. And all this time there is
not the slightest evidence of contact with or knowledge of the East.
As Reinach says, in no dolmen, no lake station, no excavation of the
stone age is there any trace of an Assyrian or Babylonian cylinder, or
even an Egyptian amulet. Even the jade and nephrite found in western
Europe from Switzerland to Norway, which has so long been regarded as
evidence of early commerce with the East, he denies as proof of such
contact. The case thus put may perhaps be over-strenuously stated, yet
one can not but realize from it that western Europe has too long been
libeled in respect of its native aptitude for civilization. This is
not constituted of bronze alone, nor is its trade-mark cremation.
Thus, while an intensive outbreak of culture of a high order may not
have arisen west of the Alps, it can no longer be denied that the
general standard of intelligence was surely rising of its own native
volition.

II. _Throughout the eastern Alpine highlands, a culture far more
highly evolved than the neolithic one in the West, and betraying
certain Oriental affinities, appears at a very early time, a thousand
years or more before the Christian era. This prehistoric civilization
represents a transitional stage between bronze and iron._

In a secluded valley in upper Austria, close to the border line of
Salzburg, by the little Alpine hamlet of Hallstatt, a remarkable
necropolis was discovered more than a half century ago, which marked
an epoch in archæological research. Excavations at this place alone,
far from any present considerable seat of population, have already
revealed more than three thousand graves. The primitive culture here
unearthed, represented by all kinds of weapons, implements, and
ornaments, bore no resemblance to any of the then known classical ones
of the Mediterranean basin. Its graves contained no Roman coins or
relics. There was nothing Greek about it. It contained no trace either
of writing or chronology. It was obviously prehistoric; there was no
suggestion of a likeness to the early civilizations in Scandinavia. It
was even more primitive than the Etruscan, and entirely different from
it, especially in its lack of the beautiful pottery known to these
predecessors of the Romans. Little wonder that von Sacken, who first
adequately described it in 1868, and Hochstetter, who worthily carried
on his researches, believed that Hallstatt represented an entirely
indigenous and extinct Alpine civilization. On the other hand, so
exceedingly rich and varied were the finds in this out-of-the-way
corner of Europe, that another and quite different view seemed
justifiable. Might this not be an entirely exotic culture? products
gained by trade from all parts of the world, being here deposited with
their dead by a people who controlled the great and very ancient salt
mines hereabouts? Neither of these interpretations of this find at
Hallstatt have been exactly verified by later researches, and yet its
importance has not lessened in the least. By later discoveries all
over eastern Europe south of the Danube, from the Tyrol over to the
Balkan peninsula, as well as throughout northern Italy, Würtemberg,
and even over into northeastern France, the wide extension of this
civilization[F] proves that it must in a large measure have developed
upon the spot, and not come as an importation from abroad. On the
other hand, its affinity in many details with the cultures both of
Italy and Greece proved that it had made heavy drafts upon each of
these, profiting greatly thereby. The best opinion to-day is, that it
constitutes a link in the chain of culture between eastern and western
Europe. As such it is of primary importance in any study of European
origins.

[Illustration: BRONZE SITULA.

Watsch, Austrian Tyrol.]

The primitive stage of European civilization, to which the term
Hallstatt is specifically applied by archæologists, is characterized
by a knowledge both of bronze and iron, although the latter is
relatively insignificant. Its rarity indicates that we have to do with
the very beginnings of its use. In this early combination of bronze
and iron the Hallstatt culture is in strong contrast with the rest of
Europe. Almost everywhere else, as in Hungary for example, a pure
bronze age--sometimes one even of copper also--intervenes between the
use of stone and iron. Here, however, the two metals, bronze and iron,
appear simultaneously. There is no evidence of a use of bronze alone.
Bearing in mind, what we shall subsequently emphasize in the case of
Scandinavia, that in that remote part of Europe man had to put up with
the inferior metal for close upon a thousand years before the
acquisition of a better substitute, it will be seen that at Hallstatt
a remarkable foreshortening of cultural evolution had ensued. Iron, as
we have said, was still comparatively rare. Only in the case of small
objects, less often in the blades of bronze-handled swords, does this
more precious metal appear. But it is far more common than in the
earliest Greek civilizations made known to us by Schliemann and
others.

Pages of description would not give so clear an idea of this early
civilization as the pictures of their lives, which the Hallstatt
people have fortunately left to us. These are found in _repoussé_ upon
their bronzes, and particularly upon their little _situlæ_, or
metallic pails. These _situlæ_ are, in fact, the most distinctive
feature among all the objects which they have left to us. By means of
them their civilization has been most accurately traced and identified
geographically. On the opposite page we have reproduced the design
upon the most celebrated of these _situlæ_, discovered by Deschmann in
1882, at Watsch in the Tyrol. Another from Bologna, typical of the
pre-Etruscan Italian time, will be found upon a later page. Upon each
of these, the skill manifested in the representation of men and
animals is no less remarkable than the civilization which it depicts.
The upper zone of this _situla_ from Watsch apparently shows a festal
procession, possibly a wedding, for a lady rides in the second
chariot. The grooms and outriders betoken a party of distinction. As
for the second zone, doubt as to its exact interpretation prevails.
Hochstetter declares it to be a banquet, food and entertainment being
offered to the personages seated upon chairs at the left. Bertrand is
disposed to give it more of a religious interpretation. As for the
contest between gladiators armed with the cestus, all is plain. The
spectators, judges, even the ram and the helmet for reward of the
victor, are all shown in detail. It is not necessary for us to cite
more evidence. A civilization already far from primitive is surely
depicted. As for its date, all are agreed that it is at least as early
as ten centuries before Christ;[G] not far, that is to say, from the
supposed Homeric epoch in Greece.

[Illustration: BRONZE BREASTPLATE FROM OLYMPIA. (After Furtwaengler's
Olympia, 1892.)]

The Hallstatt civilizations betray unmistakable affinities with three
other prehistoric European cultures, widely separated from one
another. It contains many early Greek elements; it is very similar to
a notable prehistoric culture in the Caucasus Mountains; and it
resembles most nearly of all perhaps the pre-Etruscan civilization in
Italy. With the third of these--the Italian--it seems to have been
most nearly upon terms of equality, each borrowing from the other,
after a fashion of which we shall have occasion to speak shortly. On
the other hand, the relation of the Hallstatt culture to that of
Greece and Caucasia seems to be somewhat more filial rather than
fraternal. In describing the area of this civilization, we have seen
how firmly it is intrenched all through the southern part of
Austria-Hungary and well over into the north of the Balkan peninsula.
A comparison of Furtwaengler's magnificent collection of objects from
Olympia with those of Hallstatt instantly reveals their similarities.
To make this clear, we have reproduced one of the Olympian
breastplates, ornamented with figures, which at once suggest those
upon the _situla_ from Watsch above described. This design is doubly
interesting. It shows us a slightly higher stage of the art of figural
representation, as well as of conventional design. Not only the men
and horses, but the borders, are far better drawn. More than this, we
begin to detect a distinctly Oriental motive in other details. The
bulls and the lions--lions are not indigenous to Europe nowadays--at
once remind us of their Babylonian and Assyrian prototypes. We have
entered the sphere of Asiatic artistic influence, albeit very
indistinctly. This design here represented, it should be said, is
rather above the average of the Olympian finds of the earlier epoch.
Many of the other objects, especially the little votive figures of
beasts and men, are much more crude, although always characteristic
and rudely artistic in many ways. Through this Olympian stage of
culture we pass transitionally on to the Mycenæan, which brings us
into the full bloom of the classic Greek.

The Oriental affinities of the Hallstatt culture have been especially
emphasized by recent archæological discoveries at Koban, in the
Caucasus Mountains. A stage of culture transitional between bronze and
iron, almost exactly equivalent to that of the eastern Alps, is
revealed. Similarities in little objects, like fibulæ, might easily be
accounted for as having passed in trade, but the relationship is too
intimate to be thus explained. Hungary forms the connecting link
between the two. In many respects its bronze age is different from
that of Hallstatt, notably in that the latter seems to have acquired
the knowledge of iron and of bronze at about the same time. In Hungary
the pure bronze age lasted a long time, and attained a full maturity.
A characteristic piece is represented herewith. In respect of the
representation of figures of animals such as these, Hallstatt,
Hungary, and Koban are quite alike.

[Illustration: HUNGARIAN BRONZE VESSEL. (After Hampel, 1876.)]

Have we proved that bronze culture came from Asia by reason of these
recent finds in the Caucasus? Great stress has been laid upon them in
the discussion of European origins. Are we justified in agreeing with
Chantre that two currents of culture have swept from Asia into
Europe--one by the Caucasus north of the Black Sea and up the Danube;
the other across Asia Minor and into the Balkan peninsula, thence
joining the first in the main center of Hallstatt civilization, east
of the Alps? The point seems by no means established. Relationship
does not prove parentage. Far more likely does it appear that the
Koban culture is a relic or an offshoot rather than a cradle of bronze
civilization. And even Chantre, ardent advocate as he is of Oriental
derivations, seems to feel the force of this in his later writings,
for he confesses that Koban is rather from Mediterranean European
sources than that Europe is from Koban. Most probable of all is it,
that both Hallstatt and Koban are alike derived from a common root in
the neighborhood of Chaldea.

III. _The Hallstatt (or Celtic?) civilization of bronze and iron
roughly overlies the present area occupied by the broad-headed Alpine
race; yet this type is not always identified with the Oriental
culture. It seems to have appeared in Europe in a far lower stage of
civilization, and to have subsequently made progress culturally upon
the spot._

To trace any definite connection between race and civilization in
Europe is rendered extremely hazardous scientifically by reason of the
appearance along with bronze of the custom of burning instead of
burying the dead, their ashes being disposed in cinerary urns, jars,
or other receptacles. By this procedure all possible clew to the
physical type of the people is, of course, annihilated at once. It has
become almost an axiom among archæologists that bronze culture and
incineration are constant companions. Wherever one appears, the other
may confidently be looked for. Together they have long been supposed
to be the special and peculiar attributes of a new broad-headed
immigrant race from the East. To prove this conclusively is, of
course, absolutely impossible for the above-mentioned reason. Of the
two, it seems as if incineration would be a more reliable test of race
than a knowledge of bronze; for burial customs, involving as they do
the most sacred instincts and traditions of a people, would be most
persistently maintained, even throughout long-continued migrations.
The use of bronze, on the other hand, being a matter of obvious
utility, and capable of widespread dissemination commercially, is
seemingly of far less ethnic significance.

To indicate the uncertainty of proof in these matters, let us suppose
that the Hallstatt civilization, for example, is the result of an
immigration of a brachycephalic Oriental civilized race overlying a
primitive native long-headed one. That seems best to conform to the
data, which northern Italy at least affords. Suppose the new
people--call them Celts with the best authorities, if you
please--brought not only bronze and iron, but the custom of
incineration. Prior to their appearance inhumation was the rule. What
would be the result if one attempted to determine the physical
character of that people from a study of the remains in their
necropoli? All the crania to be found in the graves with the precious
objects of bronze would in no wise represent the people who brought
that bronze. They burned their bridges behind them at death, and
disappeared for good and all. And the remains left to the archæologist
would represent precisely that class in the population which had
nothing to do with the main characteristics of its civilization. And
then, again, we must bear in mind that the interments in these
necropoli as a whole, both with burned or buried dead, constitute a
selected type. Neither Hallstatt, Watsch, nor any of the burial places
of their type were open to the great mass of the common people. They
were sacred spots, far removed among the mountains from any centers of
population. Only the rich or powerful presumably had access to them.
They are no more typical of the Hallstatt people, therefore, than
interments in Westminster Abbey are representative of the English
masses. All our data are necessarily drawn from a class within a
class. Inductions from them must be very gingerly handled.

The situation above described seems to prevail almost everywhere in
the Hallstatt cultural area. Two distinct burial customs denote
possibly two separate peoples, the inhumers being certainly the older.
In the Hallstatt necropolis, for example, about one third of the
graves once contained human remains, all the others containing mere
ashes. So ancient are these graves that only eight crania from the
hundreds of interments of the first class are available for study.
These are of a pronounced long-headed type.[H] The modern populations
of this part of Europe are, as we have seen, among the broadest-headed
people in the world, as are also all the modern Illyrians. Yet from
the great necropolis at Glasinac in Bosnia, with its twenty thousand
tumuli, the meager Hallstatt returns are amply corroborated.[I] The
ancient inhabitants were as long-headed as they are pronouncedly of
the opposite type to-day. Up in Bohemia and Moravia also, according to
Niederle, the first bronze-age people, such as we know them, were
still dolichocephalic quite like their predecessors in the pure stone
age. And here also is incineration just about frequent enough to make
it uncertain whether the human remains are typical or not.

Under these circumstances, three suppositions are open to us. We may
hold that these long-headed crania of the Hallstatt people are
worthless for any anthropological purposes whatever. This one would
certainly be tempted to do were the testimony, such as it is, not so
unanimous. Or, secondly, we may assume that these long-headed
Hallstatt people belonged to a period subsequent to the appearance of
the brachycephalic type in western Europe. If we do so, we place them
in the same class with the Teutonic race which so certainly appears
to overlie this one in the later iron age in Switzerland and
throughout southern Germany; for the Helvetians and the _Reihengräber_
conquerors from the north surely imposed a novel culture, albeit a
militant one, upon the long-settled Alpine people, racially speaking.
The Hallstatt civilization is immeasurably too early to permit of this
hypothesis. At this time the long-headed Teutonic peoples about
Scandinavia were certainly vastly inferior in culture, as we shall
attempt to prove shortly. Thus we are forced to the third conclusion
if we admit the competency of our cranial evidence--namely, that the
Hallstatt people in this early bloom of civilization in Europe were
allied to the Mediterranean type of the south. No other source for
such a dolichocephalic population is possible. Our stock of types of
this kind is exhausted.

It does not require a great credulity to admit of this hypothesis,
that the Hallstatt people were of Mediterranean type. Were not the
Greeks, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians all members of this same
race? One single difficulty presents itself. Over in Italy, throughout
the valley of the Po, an entirely analogous civilization to that of
the eastern Alps occurs. Hallstatt and Villanova, Watsch and Bologna,
are almost identical culturally. And yet over here in Italy the new
culture of bronze and of incineration seems to be borne by a
broad-headed people of the same type as the modern one. Thus, for
example, at Novilara so long as the bodies were all inhumed, the
people were of the long-headed Mediterranean type once indigenous to
the whole of Italy, now surviving, as we have seen, only in the
southern half. On the other hand, when incineration begins to appear
in this place, the human remains still left to us are of a mixed and
far more broad-headed type. It would seem admissible to assume that
when the modern brachycephalic Alpine race submerged the native one it
brought new elements of civilization with it. Many Italian
authorities, at all events, agree in ascribing the new culture--call
it Umbrian with Sergi, or proto-Etruscan with Helbig--to a new race of
Veneto-Illyrian or Alpine physical proclivities. What they have not
definitely proved, however, is that any necessary connection between
race and culture exists. There is much to show that the broad-headed
race came in some time before the introduction of the new arts. Even
in the later _Terramare_ period, preceding the Italian Hallstatt
culture, when stone and copper only are in evidence, a change of
physical type in the people apparently begins, just as also in France
in the neolithic period.

The most indubitable testimony that the Alpine race did not appear in
western Europe, armed _cap-à-pie_ with bronze and other attributes of
culture, is afforded by the lake dwellings of Switzerland. Here in the
pile-built villages of the Swiss lakes we can trace an uninterrupted
development of civilization from the pure stone age through bronze and
into iron. Beginning at a stage of civilization about equal to that of
the ancient Aryan-speaking peoples, judged by the root words known to
us; not only knowledge of the metals, but of agriculture, of the
domestication of animals, and of the finer arts of domestic life, have
little by little been acquired. Equally certain is it that no change
of physical type has occurred among these primitive Swiss, at least
until the irruptions of the Teutonic Helvetians and others at the
opening of the historic period. From the very earliest times in the
stone age a broad-headedness no less pronounced than that of the
modern Swiss prevailed among these people.[J] Here would seem to be
pretty conclusive proof that the Alpine race entered Europe long
before the culture with which its name has been all too intimately
associated.

In the outlying parts of Europe, perhaps even in Gaul, it is extremely
doubtful whether any closer connection between race and culture exists
than in the Alps. It has long been maintained that the brachycephalic
people of the Round Barrows introduced bronze into Britain. Surely, as
we have already shown, things point to that conclusion.[K] Beddoe,
Dawkins, and other authorities maintain it at all events. Yet Canon
Taylor makes it pretty evident that the new race arrived in Britain,
as it certainly did in Gaul, considerably in advance of any knowledge
of the metals. As for Scandinavia, much the same relation holds true.
Both race and culture, as we shall see, came from the south, but it is
by no means clear that they arrived at the same time or that one
brought the other. In Spain, Siret has asserted that bronze came in
the hands of a new immigrant broad-headed race, but the authoritative
opinion of Cartailhac discovers no direct evidence to this effect.

The final conclusions which would seem to follow from our tedious
summary is this: That the nearly contemporaneous appearance of a
brachycephalic race and the first knowledge of metals indicative of
Oriental cultural influences in western Europe, is more or less a
coincidence. The first civilized peoples of the Hallstatt period seem
to have been closely allied, both in physical type and culture, with
the Greeks and other peoples of the classic East. Among them, perhaps
over them, swept the representatives of our broad-headed Alpine type
who came from the direction of Asia. These invaders may have been the
Scythians, although the matter is incapable of proof. Pressure from
this direction set both culture and population in motion toward the
west, in much the same way that the fall of Constantinople in the
fifteenth century induced the Renaissance in Italy.

IV. _The remarkable prehistoric civilization of Italy is due to the
union of two cultures: one from the Hallstatt region having entered
Europe by way of the Danube, the other coming from the southeast by
sea being distinctly Mediterranean. From these evolved the Umbrian and
the Etruscan civilizations, followed in the historic period by the
early Latin._

The earliest culture in Italy worthy the name is found in the
_palafitte_ or pile dwellings, in the northern lakes, and in the
so-called _terramare_ settlements in the valley of the Po. The former
are not distinguishable from similar structures in the Swiss lake
dwellings, but the _terramare_ are entirely peculiar to Italy. Their
like is not found anywhere else in Europe. Briefly described, they are
villages built upon raised platforms of earth, encircled by a moat,
and generally having a ditch or small pond in the middle, in which an
altar is erected. These complicated structures are built upon the low,
marshy, alluvial plains along the Po, but show many points of
similarity with the true pile dwellings. The people of this early
period were in the pure stone age, with few arts save that of making
the coarser kinds of pottery. From their osseous remains, they seem to
have been of a long-headed type, quite like their predecessors, who
were cave dwellers. After a time, without any modification of the
modes of construction of their settlements, new elements appear among
these _terramare_ people, bringing bronze and introducing cremation.
At about the same period, as we have said, the Alpine broad-headed
race began its submergence of the primitive Ligurian type, leading to
the formation of the north Italian population as we see it to-day.
This type surely invaded Italy from the north and northeast.

From the foregoing considerations it will appear that there were two
constituent streams of culture and also of men here uniting in the
valley of the Po and on the northern slopes of the Apennines.
Possibly, as Chantre affirms, these two streams were from a common
Oriental source, here being reunited after long and independent
migrations. At all events, a remarkable advance in culture speedily
ensued, superior to either of those from which its elements were
derived. For the civilization unearthed at Villanova, in the Certosa
at Bologna, at Este, and elsewhere, while in much of its bronze work
similar to the Hallstatt types, contained a number of added features,
obviously either indigenous or brought directly from the south. The
Hallstatt affinities are especially revealed in the _situlæ_ to which
we have already called attention. That of Arnoaldi, discovered at
Bologna, betrays much the same grade of skill in manufacture as the
one from Watsch. Its flat development is shown by the accompanying
cut. The scenes represented are not dissimilar. The boxers armed with
the cestus, the chariots, and horses closely resemble one another. No
doubt of a close intercourse between the two regions of Bologna and
Austria can possibly exist.

[Illustration: ARNOALDI SITULA, BOLOGNA.

(From Revue Archéologique, 1885, vol. ii, Plate XXV.)]

The influence of the second or native element in prehistoric Italian
civilization appears most clearly in the Etruscan period. Etruria,
lying south of the Apennines, was more essentially Italian, as we
might expect, than the region about Bologna, where the Umbro-Hallstatt
or continental culture flourished. It is easy to note the superiority
in the former case. It is most clearly indicated in the pottery. Here
we find an art which is truly indigenous to the climate and soil of
the Mediterranean.

Popularly, the word "Etruscan" at once suggests the ceramic art; the
progress effected in a short time was certainly startling. To give an
idea of the sudden change, we have reproduced upon page 30
illustrations of typical bits of Italian pottery.[L] The first vase,
prior to the full Etruscan culture, shows its crudity at once, both in
its defects of form and the plainness and simplicity of its
ornamentation. Such a vessel might have been made in Mexico or even by
our own Pueblo Indians. In a century or two some teacher made it
possible to produce the sample depicted in the next cut. Perfect in
form, superb in grace of outline, its decoration is most effective;
yet it betrays greater skill in geometrical design than in the
representation of animate life. The dog drawn on the girdle is still
far from lifelike. Then come--probably after inspiration from Greek
art--the possibilities in complex ornamentation represented by our
third specimen. Not more pleasing in form, perhaps less truly artistic
because of its ornateness, it manifests much skill in the delineation
of human and animal forms. The culture culminates at this point. From
profusion of ornament and overloaded decoration, degeneracy begins. It
is the old story of the life and decay of schools of art, time in and
time out, the world over.

[Illustration: EARLY ETRUSCAN.

LATER ETRUSCAN.

GREEK ETRUSCAN.]

The advance in culture typified by our vases was equaled in all the
details of life. The people built strongly walled cities; they
constructed roads and bridges; their architecture, true predecessor of
the Roman, was unique and highly evolved. All the plain and good
things of life were known to these people, and their civilization was
rich in its luxury, its culture and art as well. In costumes, jewelry,
the paraphernalia of war, in painting and statuary they were alike
distinguished. Their mythology was very complex, much of the Roman
being derived from it. Most of our knowledge of them is derived from
the rich discoveries in their chambered tombs, scattered all over
Italy from Rome to Bologna. There can be no doubt of a very high type
of civilization attained long before the Christian era. Roman history
is merged in the obscurity of time, five or six hundred years later
than this. The high antiquity of the Etruscan is therefore beyond
question. But its highly evolved art and culture show that we have no
longer to do with European origins; to discuss it further would lead
us to trench upon the field of classical rather than prehistoric
archæology.

V. _The northwestern corner of Europe, including Scandinavia, Denmark,
and the Baltic plain of Germany, throughout the prehistoric period has
been characterized by backwardness of culture as compared with the
rest of Europe. It was populated from the south, deriving a large part
of such primitive civilization as it possessed from the south and the
southeast as well._

That this region was necessarily uninhabited during the Glacial epoch,
long after the advent of man in southern Europe, is indubitable. It is
proved by the extent of the glaciated area, which extends on the
mainland as far south as Hamburg, Berlin, and Posen, and over the
entire British Isles at the same time.[M] It was by the melting of
this vast sheet of ice that those high level river terraces in France
and Belgium were formed, in which the most ancient and primitive
implements of human manufacture occur. In the area beneath this ice
sheet no trace of human occupation until long after this time occurs.
This fact of itself, is not absolutely conclusive, for glaciation
would have obliterated all traces of anterior habitation or activity.
As to the possibility of a tertiary population before the Glacial
epoch, it presents too remote a contingency for us to consider,
although we do not deny its possibility. It too far antedates
prehistory, so to speak.

At the notable International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric
Archæology at Stockholm in 1874 a landmark in these sciences was
established by substantial agreement among the leading authorities
from all over Europe upon the proposition now before us.[N] First of
all, every one subscribed to the view that the palæolithic or oldest
stone age was entirely unrepresented in Sweden. The earliest and
simplest stone implements discovered in the southern part of that
country betray a degree of skill and culture far above that so long
prevalent in France and Germany. Stone is not only rubbed and polished
into shape, but the complicated art of boring holes in it has been
learned. Norway also seems to be lacking in similar evidence of a
human population in the very lowest stage of civilization. Stone
implements anterior to the discovery of the art of rubbing or
polishing are almost unknown. Only about Christiania have any finds at
all been made. In Denmark some few very rude implements have been
found. They are so scarce as to suggest that they are mere rejects or
half-finished ones of a later type. The kitchen middens, or shell
heaps, of Jutland, for which the region is most notable, as described
by Steenstrup, abound in stone implements. They all represent man in
the neolithic age. Polished stones are as abundant as the rudely
hammered ones are rare. From the absence of all the very early stone
implements, and from the sudden appearance of others of a far more
finished type, the possibility of a gradual evolution of culture about
Scandinavia _in situ_ is denied on all hands. The art of working stone
has surely been introduced from some more favored region. The only
place to look for the source of this culture is to the south.

[Illustration: FLINT DAGGER.

(From Montelius, 1895 b.)]

[Illustration: STONE AXE.

(From Montelius, 1895 b.)]

[Illustration: BRONZE AXE.

(From Montelius, 1895 b.)]

Tardy in its human occupation and its stone culture, Scandinavia was
still more backward, as compared with the rest of Europe, in its
transition to the age of bronze. This is all the more remarkable in
view of the rich store of raw materials on every hand. Nowhere else in
Europe does the pure stone age seem to have been so unduly protracted.
A necessary consequence of this was that stone-working reached a
higher stage of evolution here than anywhere else in the world save in
America. In other parts of Europe the discovery of metal-working, of
course, immediately put an end to all progress in this direction. The
ultimate degree of skill to which they attained is represented in the
accompanying cuts. The first, a flint poniard, shows the
possibilities, both in the line of form and finish, of manufacture by
the chipping process. To equal this example one must look to the most
skillful of the American Indians, as in Tennessee, where they were
too remote from mines of native copper to make use of a ready
substitute for stone. Our second implement is an axe hammer, made of
diorite. To shape, sharpen, bore, and polish a piece of stone like
this certainly required a long apprenticeship in the art.

[Illustration: BRONZE BRACELET: 650-500 B. C. (From Montelius, 1895
b.)]

Bronze culture, when it did at last appear in this remote part of
Europe, came upon the scene suddenly and in full maturity. Whether
this was as early as the eighth to the tenth century, as Montelius
avers, is disputed by many. All are nevertheless agreed that evidence
is absolutely lacking that the art was of indigenous origin. From what
part of the world this knowledge of bronze ultimately came we leave an
open question, as also whether it came with Phoenician traders or
direct from Greece, as Worsaae affirms. It was certainly introduced
into Sweden, making its way into Norway about the same time directly
from the peninsula of Jutland. Its first appearance is in a highly
evolved state. Such crude attempts at manufacture as Chantre finds so
long prevalent along the Rhone Valley, for example, are entirely
absent. Both in form and ornamentation the hand of the master is
apparent. This bronze age, like that of stone, lasted a very long
time--far longer than anywhere else on the continent. Central Europe
passed through three stages of metallic progress while Scandinavia was
evolving two. Not until the second or third century of our era--not
until the time of the Romans, it would appear--did iron begin to
supplant bronze. History repeats itself. The excessive duration of the
bronze age, as in the case of stone antecedently, led to the
attainment of a remarkable skill. The two accompanying cuts are
typical of the best work of this time. In the one case, merely
superficial ornament, especially the skillful use of the spiral; in
the other, real beauty of form in the bracelet, are clearly apparent.
Possessed of such skill in the working of bronze, it is small wonder
that the need of a better metal was not felt. Only when fashioned into
weapons of war does iron reveal its supremacy over bronze. This, of
course, with the campaigns of historical times, brings us to the end
of our chronicle.

The prehistoric experience of metal-working in Scandinavia is typical
of the other details of its cultural evolution. In its earliest epoch
no trace of domestic animals is present. It is rather a remarkable
fact that even the reindeer seems to have been unknown.[O] What can
Penka say to this in his positive affirmation that the original Aryans
got up into Scandinavia, having followed the reindeer from central
Europe north after the retreat of the ice sheet? The fact is,
archæologically speaking, from the evidence furnished by the kitchen
middens, that if they ever did this "they left a fine country, where
deer were plenty, to subsist upon shellfish on the foggy coasts of
Denmark."[P] The entire absence of economic motive for such a
migration is at once apparent. Men seldom travel far under such
conditions. Quite early, however, even in the stone age, do evidences
of domestic animals occur, to the dog being added the ox, horse,
swine, and sheep. Pottery in a rude form also follows. Finally, and in
apparent coincidence with the bronze culture, comes a new custom of
incineration. The dead are no longer buried, but burned. A profound
modification of religious ideas is hereby implied. It seems to have
been at about this time also that our Alpine racial type entered
Scandinavia from Denmark, although, as we have already observed, it is
yet far from certain that the new race was the active agent in
introducing the new elements of culture. All that we know is that they
both came from the south, and reached this remote region at about the
same time.

       *       *       *       *       *

That the origins of culture in Europe are certainly mixed would seem
to be about the main conclusion to be drawn from our extended
discussion. It has an iconoclastic tone. Yet we would not leave the
matter entirely in the air, nor would we agree with Mantegazza (1884)
in his conclusion that "Ignoramus" sums up our entire knowledge of the
subject. There is some comfort to be drawn even from this mass of
conflicting opinions. Our final destructive aim has been achieved if
we have emphasized the danger of correlating data drawn from several
distinct sciences, whose only bond of unity is that they are all
concerned with the same object--man. The positive contribution which
we would seek to make is that the whole matter of European origins is
by no means so simple as it has too often been made to appear. It is
not imperative that conclusions from all the contributory sciences of
physical anthropology, philology, and cultural history should be
susceptible of interweaving into a simple scheme of common origins for
all. The order of races, for example, need mean nothing as respects
priority of culture. Nor do the two sciences, philology and
archæology, involve one another's conclusions so far as civilization
is concerned. Language and industrial culture may have had very
different sources; their migrations need stand in no relation to one
another in the least. Each science is fully justified in its own
deductions, but must be content to leave the results of others in
peace. Such is the ultimate conclusion to which all the latest
authority is tending. Only by a careful comparison of data from each
sphere of investigation may we finally hope to combine them all in a
composite whole, as many-sided and complex as the life and nature of
man itself.


FOOTNOTES:

[A] Advance sheets from The Races of Europe, now in the press of D.
Appleton and Company, to appear in May. Footnotes and references are
herein largely omitted.

[B] Popular Science Monthly, January, 1898, pp. 304-322.

[C] Le Mirage Orientale, 1893 a; and in his admirable outline of
sculptural origins in Europe (1894-'96).

[D] Arii e Italici, Torino, 1898, especially pp. 199-220.

[E] Reinach, 1893 a, pp. 543-548. G. de Mortillet, 1897, denies the
claim.

[F] Chantre, 1884; Hoernes, 1892; Bertrand and Reinach, 1894 a; Sergi,
1898 a; and Orsi (Bull. Paletnologia Italiana, xi, 1885, p. 1 _et
seq._) are best authorities. See also Hallstatt in the subject index
of our Bibliography, soon to be published as a Special Bulletin of the
Boston Public Library.

[G] Hoernes, 1892, p. 529; Bertrand, 1876 a, second edition, pp.
207-216, fixes about 800 B. C.; but 1894 a, p. 80, carries it back to
1200-1300 B. C.

[H] Zuckerkandl, 1883, p. 96.

[I] Weisbach, 1897 b.

[J] This fact has been established beyond doubt by the recent great
work of Studer and Bannwarth, Crania Helvetica Antiqua, 1894. _Vide_
p. 13. Sergi's attempt to interpret the data otherwise (1898 a, p. 67)
is entirely erroneous. Gross's data apparently refer entirely to the
later period of Teutonic invasions in the iron age (1883, p. 106).
_Cf._ Munro, pp. 537 and 541.

[K] Popular Science Monthly, December, 1897, p. 151.

[L] From Montelius, 1897.

[M] _Cf._ maps and data in J. Geikie, 1894; Penck, 1884; and Niederle,
1893, p. 25.

[N] Bertrand, 1876 a and 1876 b, gives a full account of it. The best
recent authorities upon Scandinavian culture are Sophus Mueller, 1897,
and Montelius, 1895 b. Other works of reference are those of Worsaae,
Nilsson, Hildebrand, Madsen and Rygh, full titles being given in our
supplementary Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of
Europe. Comprising nearly two thousand titles, it will be provided
with a detailed subject index.

[O] Bertrand, 1876 b, p. 40.

[P] Reinach, 1892, pp. 72-78, for severe criticism of Penka's
hypotheses.




LIQUID AIR.

BY IRA REMSEN,

PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.


Water, the substance most familiar to us, is known in the liquid, in
the solid, and in the gaseous state. Everybody knows that by heating
the solid it passes into the liquid state, and that by heating the
liquid it passes into the form of gas or vapor. So also everybody
knows that when the vapor of water is cooled it is liquefied, and that
by cooling liquid water sufficiently it becomes solid or turns to ice.
In the same way many of the substances that are known to us as
liquids, such as alcohol and ether, can be converted into the form of
gas or vapor by heat. In fact, this is true of most liquids. The
temperature at which a solid passes into the liquid state is called
its melting point, and the temperature at which a liquid passes into
the gaseous state is called its boiling point. The boiling point of
water, for example, is 100° C. (212° F.) in the open air. But the
boiling point varies with the pressure exerted upon the surface. The
pressure that we ordinarily have to deal with is that of the
atmosphere. If the pressure is increased the boiling point is raised,
and if the pressure is decreased the boiling point is lowered. In
dealing, then, with the conversion of a gas into a liquid, or that of
a liquid into a gas, both the temperature and the pressure have to be
considered.

Just as water is most familiar to us in the liquid form, so there are
substances that are most familiar to us in the gaseous form. In fact,
the only gaseous substances that can be said to be familiar to
everybody are the gases contained in the air. The principal
constituents of the air are nitrogen and oxygen, which form
respectively about four fifths and one fifth of its bulk. Besides
these gases, however, the air contains water vapor, carbonic-acid gas,
ammonia, argon in small quantities, and many other substances in still
smaller quantities. For the purposes of this article it is only
necessary to have in mind the nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and
carbonic acid. Of these, the water vapor is easily converted into
liquid, as, for example, in the formation of rain, while the other
constituents are liquefied with difficulty. The name "liquid air" is
applied to the substance that is obtained by converting the air as a
whole into a liquid; but in this process the water and the carbonic
acid become solid and can be filtered from the liquid so that the
latter consists almost wholly of oxygen and nitrogen. A few years ago
this liquid was obtainable in only very small quantities. To-day,
thanks especially to the efforts of Mr. Charles E. Tripler, of New
York, it can be produced in any desired quantity, and at moderate
cost. In consequence of this, it has come to be talked about in a
familiar way, and many persons have had the privilege of seeing and
feeling it, and of learning something about its wonderful properties.
The object of this article is to explain the method employed in the
production of liquid air, to give an account of some of its
properties, and to indicate some of the uses to which it may possibly
be put.

In the older text-books of physics and of chemistry certain gases were
classed as "permanent," under the impression that these could not be
liquefied, and this impression was based upon the fact that all
efforts to liquefy them had failed. A brief account of these efforts
will be helpful.

Among the so-called permanent gases was chlorine. An English chemist,
Northmore, first succeeded, early in this century, in liquefying
chlorine. His work was, however, lost sight of, and in 1823 Faraday at
the Royal Institution showed independently that this transformation of
gaseous chlorine into the liquid can be effected comparatively easily.
The method used by him is this: When chlorine gas is passed into cold
water it forms with the water a solid product known as chlorine
hydrate. If kept well cooled this hydrate can be dried. If then its
temperature is raised even to the ordinary temperature of the room,
the solid hydrate is decomposed into liquid water and gaseous
chlorine. Faraday put some of the solid hydrate into a stout glass
tube sealed at one end and bent at the middle. The other end of the
tube was then closed. The tube was then suspended so that the two ends
were turned downward. On gently warming the end in which was the solid
hydrate, this was decomposed into chlorine and water. But the gas
given off would under ordinary conditions have occupied a much larger
space than the solid hydrate. Being prevented from expanding by the
tube in which it was inclosed, it was under very considerable
pressure. The end of the tube that was not warmed was cooled, and in
this end, in consequence of the pressure and the comparatively low
temperature, chlorine, which is gaseous under the ordinary pressure of
the air, appeared as a liquid. The general method made use of by
Faraday in this classical experiment is that which is always made use
of for the purpose of liquefying gases, but for some gases pressures
very much higher and temperatures very much lower are required.
Faraday himself succeeded in liquefying all the gases then known
except oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, nitric oxide, and marsh gas. He
subjected oxygen to a pressure of about one thousand pounds to the
square inch, or nearly seventy atmospheres, but it showed no signs of
liquefaction. Later experimenters increased the pressure to four
thousand pounds to the square inch, with no better results, so that it
is not surprising that it came to be held that some gases are
permanent.

Within comparatively recent years several gases have been liquefied on
the large scale by means of pressure. These are ammonia, carbonic
acid, nitrous oxide, and chlorine. Ammonia is used for producing low
temperatures, as in breweries and in cold-storage plants and in the
manufacture of ice; carbonic acid, for fire extinguishers and for
charging beer with the gas; nitrous oxide, for producing anæsthesia;
and chlorine in connection with several branches of chemical
manufacture. The production of low temperatures by means of liquid
ammonia and of liquid carbonic acid will be more fully dealt with
further on, when the principles involved will be briefly presented. It
is to be borne in mind that these substances are liquefied by means of
pressure alone, at temperatures that are easily reached, so that it
appears that by mechanical pressure it is possible to produce low
temperatures. In 1869 an important fact was discovered by Andrews. It
was that for every gas there is a temperature above which it is
impossible to liquefy it by pressure. Thus, if chlorine is at any
temperature above 146° C. (294° F.) it can not be liquefied. This
temperature is called the "critical temperature" of chlorine. The
pressure to which the gas must be subjected at the "critical
temperature" in order that the gas may be liquefied is called the
"critical pressure." In the case of chlorine this is 93.5 atmospheres.
Now, the critical temperature of the gases that were called permanent
gases are very low--lower than could be reached by the means at the
command of earlier experimenters. The critical temperature of oxygen,
for example, is -118.8° C. (-182° F.), while that of nitrogen is -146°
C. (-230° F.). The critical pressures are 50.8 and 35 atmospheres
respectively. As there is no difficulty in obtaining these pressures,
the problem of liquefying oxygen and nitrogen and air resolves itself
into finding a method of producing temperatures below the critical
temperatures of these gases.

It is well known that a temperature somewhat below the freezing point
of water can be produced artificially by mixing ice and salt. The
ordinary ice-cream freezer is a familiar application of this method of
producing cold. Other freezing mixtures that are sometimes used
consist of calcium chloride and snow, that gives the temperature -48°
C. (-54.4° F.), and solid carbonic acid and ether, that is capable of
lowering the temperature to -100° C. (-148° F.). But even with the
latter mixture it is not possible to reach the critical temperature of
oxygen or that of nitrogen. How, then, is it possible to reach these
extremely low temperatures?

In order to answer this question it will be necessary to take into
consideration certain temperature changes that are observed when
solids are melted and liquids are boiled, as well as when gases are
liquefied and liquids are frozen. When heat is applied to a mass of
ice at its melting point it melts and forms a mass of water having the
same temperature. Heat disappears in the operation. It is stored up in
the water. This disappearance of heat that accompanies the melting of
ice can be shown in a very striking way by mixing a certain weight of
ice with the same weight of water that has been heated to 80° C. (176°
F.). The ice will melt and all the water obtained will be found to
have the temperature of the melting ice--that is, 0° C. (32° F.). The
water of 80° C. is thus cooled down to 0° by the melting of the ice.
Again, when heat is applied to water its temperature rises until the
boiling point is reached. Then it is converted into vapor, but this
vapor has the temperature of the boiling water. During the process of
boiling there is no rise in the temperature of the water or of the
vapor. Heat disappears, therefore, or is used up in the process of
vaporization. Similar phenomena are observed whenever a solid is
melted or a liquid is boiled. When, however, a gas is liquefied it
gives up again the heat that is absorbed by it when it is formed from
a liquid; and so also when a liquid solidifies it gives up the heat it
absorbs when it is formed from a solid.

But it is not necessary that a gas should be converted into a liquid
in order that it should give up heat. Whenever it is compressed it
becomes warmer. Some of the heat stored up in it is, as it were,
squeezed out of it. Conversely, whenever a gas expands, it takes up
heat and, of course, surrounding objects from which the heat is taken
become colder. Now, it is a comparatively simple matter to compress
air. Every wheelman knows that, and he also knows that the process
causes a rise in temperature; at least he knows it if he uses a small
hand pump. With large pumps run by steam any desired pressure can be
reached. This is simply a question of securing the proper engines, and
vessels sufficiently strong to stand the pressure. It has already been
pointed out that several gases are now liquefied on the large scale by
means of pressure. It is to be noted that low temperatures can be
produced by converting certain gases, such as ammonia and carbonic
acid, into liquids, and by compressing certain gases, as, for example,
air. When liquefied gases are used it is only necessary to allow them
to pass rapidly into the gaseous state, when more or less heat is
absorbed. This is the basis for the use of liquid ammonia in the
manufacture of ice. A vessel containing the liquid ammonia is placed
in another containing water. The inner vessel being opened, the liquid
ammonia is rapidly converted into the gas; heat is absorbed from the
water; it freezes. When a vessel containing liquid carbonic acid is
opened so that the gas that is formed escapes through a small valve,
so much heat is absorbed that a part of the liquid carbonic acid is
itself frozen. In this case the substance is present in all three
states of aggregation--the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous. The use
of a mixture of ether and solid carbonic acid as a freezing mixture
has already been referred to. Its value depends, of course,
principally upon the fact that solid carbonic acid is liquefied, and
the liquid then converted into gas, both of which operations involve
absorption of heat.

We are now prepared to understand the important experiments of
Cailletet and of Pictet, the results of which were published in 1877.
It should be said that they worked independently of each
other--Cailletet in Paris and Pictet in Geneva. Pictet liquefied
carbonic acid and sulphur dioxide by pressure. The liquid carbonic
acid was passed through a tube that was surrounded by liquid sulphur
dioxide boiling in a partial vacuum. The liquid carbonic acid thus
cooled was then boiled under diminished pressure in a jacket
surrounding a tube in which the gas to be liquefied was contained
under high pressure. When this gas was allowed to escape from a small
opening its temperature was so reduced by the expansion that a part of
it was liquefied in the tube and passed off as a liquid. Cailletet
worked in essentially the same way, but on a smaller scale. Neither of
these experimenters liquefied oxygen or nitrogen on the large scale,
but they pointed out the way that must be followed in order that
success may be attained. They destroyed the belief in "permanent"
gases.

Later experimenters in this field are Wroblewski, Olszewski, and
Dewar, who have been interested mainly in the purely scientific side
of the problem, while Linde in Germany, Hampson in England, and
Tripler in the United States have their minds on the practical side.
Notwithstanding the low temperatures involved in the experiments, a
number of heated discussions have been carried on in the scientific
journals touching the question of priority. To the unprejudiced
observer it appears that all of those named above are entitled to
credit. They have all helped the cause along, but just how to
apportion the credit no one knows. In a general way, however, some of
the results obtained by each in turn should be given. Wroblewski and
Olszewski have carried on the work begun by Cailletet and Pictet, and
have produced lower temperatures. In the latest form of apparatus used
by Olszewski, liquid ethylene is used as the cooling agent. Its
boiling point is -102° C. (-151.6° F.). By causing it to boil rapidly
under diminished pressure a temperature below the critical temperature
of oxygen can be reached. As early as 1891 Olszewski obtained as much
as two hundred cubic centimetres of liquid air by this method. Dewar
has also made use of liquid ethylene. This was passed through a spiral
copper tube surrounded by solid carbonic acid and ether. It was then
passed into a cylinder surrounded by another cylinder containing solid
carbonic acid and ether. A spiral copper tube, which runs through the
outer cylinder and also through the inner cylinder in which the
ethylene was boiling under diminished pressure, carried the air. This
was liquefied and then collected in a vacuum vessel below. Later he
found that air can be liquefied by using liquid carbonic acid alone as
the cooling agent. A sectional drawing of his apparatus described in
1896 is given herewith. As he remarks: "With this simple machine, one
hundred cubic centimetres of liquid oxygen can readily be obtained,
the cooling agent being carbon dioxide, at the temperature of -79°. If
liquid air has to be made by this apparatus, then the carbonic acid
must be kept under exhaustion of about one inch of mercury pressure,
so as to begin with a temperature of -115°."

[Illustration:

FIG. 1.--LABORATORY LIQUEFACTION APPARATUS OF DEWAR FOR THE PRODUCTION
OF LIQUID OXYGEN, ETC.

A, air or oxygen inlet; B, carbon-dioxide inlet; C, carbon-dioxide
valve; D, regenerator coils; F, air or oxygen expansion valve; G,
vacuum vessel with liquid oxygen; H, carbon-dioxide and air outlet;
o, air coil; ø, carbon-dioxide coil.]

The introduction of the vacuum vessel by Dewar has been of great
service in all the work on liquefied gases. A vacuum vessel is a
double-walled glass vessel, as shown in Fig. 1, G. The space between
the inner and outer walls of the vessel is exhausted by means of an
air pump before it is closed. The vessel is therefore surrounded by a
vacuum. As heat is not conducted by a vacuum, it is possible to keep
specimens of liquefied gases in such vessels for a surprisingly long
time. Heat enough can not pass through the vacuum to vaporize the
liquid rapidly. The most common form of these vessels is that of a
globe. Such a vessel is known as a Dewar globe or bulb.

It has been found that liquid air can be kept very well by putting it
in a tin or galvanized iron vessel, which in turn is placed in a
larger one, and then filling the space between the two with felt.
Under these conditions vaporization takes place quite slowly, and it
is possible to transport the liquid comparatively long distances. It
has, for example, been transported from New York to Baltimore and
Washington. In one case with which the writer is familiar two cans
were taken from Mr. Tripler's laboratory in the morning, delivered at
the Johns Hopkins University in the afternoon, and used to illustrate
a lecture in the evening. After the lecture there was enough left for
certain experiments that were carried on during the rest of the night.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--DIAGRAM SHOWING WORKING OF COMPRESSION
APPARATUS FOR MAKING LIQUID AIR.]

Tripler, Linde, and Hampson have all succeeded in devising forms of
apparatus by means of which air can be liquefied without the aid of
other cooling agents than the expanding air. In principle the methods
employed by these three workers are essentially the same. It appears
from the published statements that at the present time Tripler's plant
is the most efficient. While a few years ago a half pint or so of
liquid air is said to have cost five hundred dollars, now five gallons
can be made for about twenty dollars, and probably much less. The
general working of Tripler's apparatus can be made clear by the aid of
the accompanying drawing, Fig. 2. A^1, A^2, A^3 represent steam
compression pumps. Air is taken through I from above the roof of the
laboratory. In the first pump it is compressed to sixty-five pounds to
the square inch. It, of course, becomes heated as it is compressed. In
order to cool it down again it is passed through a coil, B^1, which is
surrounded by water of the ordinary temperature. This compressed and
cooled air is then further compressed in the second pump, A^2, to four
hundred pounds to the square inch. Again it is cooled in the same way
as before by means of water which circulates around the coil B^2. Once
more the air is compressed, this time in the cylinder A^3, in which it
is subjected to a pressure of two thousand to twenty-five hundred
pounds to the square inch; and then this compressed air is brought
down to the ordinary temperature in the cooler B^3. The air under this
great pressure is now passed through the purifier C, where it is freed
from particles of dust and to a great extent from moisture. From C the
air passes into the inner bent tube, about thirty feet in length,
until it reaches D. This may be called the critical point of the
apparatus. Here is situated a needle valve from which the air is
allowed to escape. It, of course, expands enormously, and is
correspondingly cooled. This very cold air passes into the space
between the inner and outer tubes, and finally escapes at F. The
result of this is that the compressed air in the inner tube is soon
cooled down so far that a considerable part of the air that escapes at
D appears in the liquid form. This collects in the lower part of the
jacket, and on opening the stopcock at E the liquid escapes in a
stream the size of one's finger.

In Mr. Tripler's laboratory the liquid is collected in the cans
already referred to. Although for the reasons mentioned the
evaporation of the liquid is comparatively slow, it is constantly
going on, and as the gas formed occupies a very much larger volume
under the pressure of the atmosphere than the liquid from which it is
formed, it is necessary to leave the cans loosely covered. Otherwise
the pressure would increase to such an extent as to burst any but the
strongest vessels. One cubic foot of liquid air gives at atmospheric
pressure eight hundred cubic feet of gaseous air.

Liquid air obtained as described is a turbid, colorless liquid. The
turbidity is due to the presence of solid water and solid carbonic
acid. By passing the liquid through a paper filter the solids are
removed, and a transparent liquid is thus obtained. This, as already
stated, consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen in the proportion of
about four fifths of the former to one fifth of the latter. Though it
should not be forgotten that this liquid contains argon in small
quantity, besides three or four other substances in still smaller
quantities, as has recently been shown by Professor Ramsay, we may
disregard everything except the nitrogen and oxygen. Liquid air is a
_mixture_ of these two substances. They are not chemically combined as
hydrogen and oxygen are, for example, in water. This mixture boils at
-191° C. (-312° F.), which is the temperature of the liquid as it is
in the cans. As the nitrogen boils at a lower temperature (-194° C. or
318° F.) than oxygen (-183° C. or 297° F.), more nitrogen is converted
into gas in a given time than oxygen, and after a time the liquid
that is left is much richer in oxygen than ordinary air. When liquid
air is poured upon water it, being a little lighter than the water,
floats, not quietly, to be sure, but in a very troubled way. Soon,
however, the liquid sinks to the bottom because the nitrogen, which is
the lighter constituent, passes into the gaseous state, and the liquid
oxygen which is left is a little heavier than water. The experiment is
a very beautiful one. A scientific poet could alone do justice to it.
The beauty is enhanced by the fact that while liquid air is colorless,
or practically so, liquid oxygen is distinctly blue.

Although liquid air has the temperature -191° C. (-312° F.), one can
without danger pass the hand through it rapidly. The sensation is a
new one, but it is evanescent. Very serious results would follow if
the hand were allowed to remain in the liquid even for a short time.
The tissues would be killed. So also, it is possible to pass the hand
rapidly through molten lead without injury. In the latter case the
moisture on the hand is converted into vapor which forms a protecting
cushion between the hand and the hot liquid; while, in the former
case, the heat of the hand converts the liquid air immediately
surrounding it into gas which prevents the liquid from coming in
contact with the hand.

When the liquid is poured out of a vessel in the air it is rapidly
converted into gas. The great lowering in the temperature causes a
condensation of the moisture of the air in the form of a cloud. The
same thing is seen when the cover is removed from a can containing the
liquid. Of course, this liquid does not wet things as water does.
When, however, as happened in New York, the lecturer deliberately
pours a dipperful of the liquid upon a priceless Worth gown, he may
expect to hear expressions of horror from the owner. This experiment
passed off most successfully. Every trace of the liquid air was
converted into invisible gases before the fleeting agony of the
sympathetic audience had passed away.

The effects of very low temperature upon a number of substances have
been studied, and some of them can easily be shown. Paraffin, resin,
and rubber immersed in liquid air soon become very brittle, and the
color of the resin is completely changed. A beefsteak or an onion also
becomes brittle, and can be broken into small fragments by the blow of
a hammer. A similar effect is produced in the case of some metals. Tin
and iron, for example, become brittle, and the tenacity of the iron is
greatly increased. A copper wire, however, retains its flexibility. At
low temperatures the electric conductivity of all metals is increased.
In general, the lower the temperature the greater the conductivity. If
a copper wire could by any means be kept cold enough, electrical
energy could be transmitted by it with but little loss--perhaps none.
Mercury is easily frozen by surrounding it with liquid air, and the
solid thus formed is very hard, though if it is cooled down
sufficiently it becomes brittle.

Alcohol can be frozen without difficulty by means of liquid air. By
the aid of the lowest temperatures hitherto attainable it has only
been possible to convert alcohol into a pasty mass. The frozen alcohol
is as hard as ice. When alcohol is dropped into liquid air the drops
retain the globular form. When taken out on a platinum loop the flame
of a Bunsen burner does not set fire to it.

Phosphorescence is greatly increased by cooling substances down to the
temperature of liquid air. This has been shown by means of water,
milk, paper, eggs, and feathers. An egg and a feather could be
distinctly seen in a dark room.

Scarlet iodide of mercury is converted into the yellow variety when it
is subjected to the temperature of liquid air. Some other colors are
changed under the same circumstances, but not enough is known of this
subject to warrant a general statement.

Attention has already been called to the fact that liquid air loses
its nitrogen more rapidly than it does its oxygen, and that, after a
time, the residue contains a large proportion of oxygen. As combustion
is combination with oxygen, combustion or burning takes place more
readily in contact with this liquid oxygen than it does in the air. If
a lighted match is attached to the end of a steel watch spring, and
this then plunged beneath the surface of liquid air, the spring will
soon take fire and burn brilliantly, the sparks flying off for some
distance in beautiful coruscations. Hair felt, which does not burn in
the air, burns in a flash when soaked with liquid air. Finally, when
liquid air is confined in any vessel not capable of sustaining an
enormous pressure, say about ten thousand pounds to the square inch,
the vaporization goes on until the vessel bursts or the stopper is
forced out. It might therefore be used as an explosive without any
addition, but its manipulation is not altogether simple.

Now for the inevitable question: Of what use is liquid air likely to
be? This is a perfectly proper question, and yet, if scientific
workers always stopped to ask it, and would not work unless they could
find a favorable answer, progress would, to say the least, be much
slower than it is. Most great practical discoveries have necessarily
passed through the plaything stage. Some of the most important
discoveries have not even furnished playthings, and have found no
practical applications as this expression is commonly understood. But
the production of liquid air, while furnishing mankind with a
beautiful and instructive plaything, seems likely to find practical
applications. We may look for these in four directions, to each of
which a short paragraph may be devoted:

First, as a cooling agent. Low temperature is marketable. To be sure,
the demand for the extremely low temperature that can be produced by
liquid air does not exist to-day, but this concentrated low
temperature can be diluted to suit conditions. The only question to be
answered in this connection is, then, What is the cost of cold
produced by liquid air? It is impossible for any one to answer this
question at all satisfactorily at present. It can only be said that
this is what experimenters are trying to find out. It appears,
however, that they are on the way to cheap liquid air, and that as the
processes are improved the price will become lower and lower.

Second, for the construction of motors. There is no doubt that liquid
air with its enormous power of expansion can be used as a source of
motive power just as compressed air is. In the case of steam it is
necessary to heat the water in order to convert it into steam, and to
heat the steam to give it the power of expansion. The cost is, in the
first instance, that of the fuel. Given a certain amount of heat, and
a certain amount of work is obtained. If liquid air is used, the
problem is much the same. Engines must be run in order to compress the
air which is to be liquefied. Every gallon of liquid air has been
produced at the expense of work of some kind. Now, the question arises
at once, What proportion of the work that was put in that gallon of
liquid air in the course of its production can be got out of it again?
It is certain that all of it can not be got out unless all that we
have ever learned about such matters goes for nothing. In dealing with
the problem of the application of liquid air as a source of motive
power we are therefore doubly handicapped. In the first place, we do
not know the cost of the liquid when produced on the large scale; and,
in the second place, _we_ do not know the probable efficiency of a
liquid-air motor. I say "we do not know." Perhaps Mr. Tripler and the
others engaged in the experiments on this subject do know
approximately. We certainly can not blame them for not telling us all
they know at this stage of the work. It is unfortunate, however, that
such a statement as was recently published in a popular magazine
should be allowed to gain currency--apparently with the sanction of
Mr. Tripler. The statement referred to is to the effect that ten
gallons of liquid air have been made by the use of three gallons of
liquid air in the engine. If that means that the ten gallons of liquid
air are made from air at the ordinary pressure, the statement is in
direct conflict with well-established principles. If it means that the
ten gallons of liquid air are made from air that has already been
partly compressed, we must know how much work has been done before the
liquid-air engine began. Leaving out of consideration the question of
cost, it may be pointed out that liquid-air engines would have the
advantage of compactness, though they would necessarily be heavy, as
they would have to be strong enough to stand the great pressure to
which they would be subjected.

The third application of liquid air that has been suggested is in the
preparation of an explosive. In fact, an explosive has been made and
used for some time in which liquid air is one of the constituents.
When the liquid from which a part of the nitrogen has boiled off is
mixed with powdered charcoal, the mixture burns with great rapidity
and great explosive force. "To make this explosive, Dr. Linde pours
the liquid containing about forty or fifty per cent of oxygen on
fragments of wood charcoal, two or four cubic millimetres in size.
These are kept from scattering under the ebullition of the liquid by
mixing them into a sort of sponge with about one third of their weight
of cotton wool." Of course, this explosive must be made at or near the
place where it is used. It has been in use in the way of a practical
test in a coal mine at Pensberg, near Munich. It is claimed that the
results were satisfactory. The chief advantage of the explosive is its
cheapness, and the fact that it soon loses its power of exploding.

Finally, the fourth application of liquid air is for the purpose of
getting oxygen from the air. This can be accomplished by chemical
means, but the chemical method is somewhat expensive. Oxygen has
commercial value, and cheap oxygen would be a decided advantage in a
number of branches of industry. It will be observed that it is the
liquid oxygen that makes possible the preparation of the explosive
described in the last paragraph. Oxygen as such in the form of gas is
of value in Deacon's process for the manufacture of chlorine. In this
process air and hydrochloric acid are caused to act upon each other so
as to form water and chlorine. The nitrogen takes no part in the act,
and it would be an advantage if it could be left out. It is only the
oxygen that is wanted. There are many other possible uses for oxygen
either in the liquid or in the gaseous form, but these need no mention
here.

In conclusion it may safely be said that it is highly probable that
liquid air will be found to be a useful substance, but it is
impossible at present to speak with any confidence of the particular
uses that will be made of it. As work with it is being carried on
energetically in at least three countries, we may confidently expect
important developments in the near future.




THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WEST INDIES.

BY F. L. OSWALD.


II.--BIRDS.

The abundance of birds on the four largest islands of the West Indian
archipelago, where indigenous mammals are almost limited to rodents
and bats, has often suggested the conjecture that the ancestors of
those islanders must have been immigrants from the east coasts of the
American mainland; and that theory seems to be confirmed by two facts:
the identity, or similarity, of numerous Mexican and West Indian
species, and the circumstance that those analogies include so many
swift-winged birds.

There are no woodpeckers in the forests of the Antilles, and only two
species of large gallinaceous birds, but a prodigious variety of
pigeons, swallows, finches, and crows. The _alcedos_ (kingfishers) are
scarce, but the blackbirds so numerous that some of the countless
species seem to claim a South American and even transatlantic
ancestry. The restless _estornino_ of the Cuban highland forests, for
instance, might be mistaken for a varnished starling, resembling the
_Sturnus vulgaris_ of western Europe in everything but the more
brilliant luster of its plumage. The curious _codornilla_, or dove
quail, too, has its nearest relatives on the other side of the
Atlantic, in Syria, Arabia, and the foothills of the Atlas. It builds
its nest on the ground and, judging from its appearance, would seem to
form a connecting link between the doves and small _gallinæ_; but its
wings are those of a pigeon, and with the assistance of a northeast
gale may possibly have carried it across the ocean.

[Illustration: CROWN PIGEON.]

In studying the geographical distribution of animals, we may estimate
the prevalence of special genera by the number of their varieties, or
by the aggregate sum of individuals, and in the latter sense the
migratory pigeons of our forest States once nearly outnumbered all the
other birds of North America, though the family is limited to five or
six species. But in the West Indies the _Columbidæ_ predominate in
both respects. Cuba is a country of wild pigeons as pre-eminently as
South Africa is a land of pachyderms and Madagascar of night monkeys.
The _Columba leucocephala_ (a congener of our ringdove) inhabits the
mountain forests in countless swarms, and at the end of the rainy
season visits grainfields in such numbers that hundreds are sometimes
captured in nets, by means of corn scattered along the furrows.

A closely allied variety is found in San Domingo, where in many upland
regions a darkey, equipped with a shotgun and a supply of gunpowder,
can dispense with agriculture and raise a family of anthropoids on
pigeon pies and _tortillas_, compounded from the grain found in the
crops of his victims.

But the _tittyblang_ (_tête-blanc_) has scores of smaller and larger
cousins, culminating in the Cuban primate of the family, the splendid
_paloma real_, with its coronet of pearl-gray plumes and dark-blue
wings.

[Illustration: CRESTED CURASSOW.]

[Illustration: PORTO RICO PARRAKEET.]

Ducks, too, must number some twenty West Indian species, and one kind
of wild geese often obliged the rice planters to employ mounted
sharpshooters, who galloped up and down the long dikes, yelling
blasphemies, and every now and then enforcing their quotations with a
handful of buckshot. But, for all that, the planter could think
himself lucky to gather a sixty-per-cent harvest of the total produce,
for experience soon enabled the long-necked depredators to estimate
the target range of the _cazador_ within a dozen yards and take wing
in the nick of time, only to resume their feast at the other end of
the plantation.

[Illustration: VERVAIN HUMMING BIRD AND NEST.]

A long-continued process of natural selection has also modified the
habits of numerous species of West Indian parrots. Four hundred years
ago, when Fernan Oviedo superintended the placer mines of Hayti,
_loris_ were so abundant and tame that his assistants often amused
themselves prowling about a thicket of berry bushes and capturing the
chattering visitors by means of a common ring net. Nestlings could be
taken from every hollow tree, and often from the thatchwork of
deserted Indian cabins; but the overconfident specimens came to grief,
and the survivors have learned to give the Caucasian varieties of the
_Simia destructor_ a wide berth. They raise their young in the
cavities of the tallest forest trees, and approach human habitations
only at dawn of day and sometimes during the noonday heat, when
creoles can be relied upon to indulge in a _siesta_ nap. In reliance
on their protective colors, gray parrakeets frequent the dead timber
of the coffee plantations, while the leaf-green Amazon parrot sticks
to leaf trees.

"When they alight on a dry branch," says Captain Gosse, in his Jamaica
chronicle, "their emerald hue is conspicuous and affords a fair mark
for the gunner, but in a tree of full foliage their color proves an
excellent concealment. They seem aware of this, and their sagacity
prompts them to rely on it for protection. Often we hear their voices
proceeding from a certain tree, or have marked the descent of a flock,
but on proceeding to the spot, though the eye has not wandered from
it, we can not discover an individual; we go close to the tree, but
all is silent; we institute a careful survey of every part with the
eye, to detect the slightest motion, or the form of a bird among the
leaves, but in vain, and we begin to think that they have stolen off
unperceived, but on throwing a stone into the tree a dozen voices
burst forth into cry, and as many green birds dart forth upon the
wing."

The gorgeous macaws, on the other hand, seem to owe their color
contrasts to sexual selection. "Ya son vencidos los pavos de
India"--"That does beat a Hindostan peacock"--exclaimed King
Ferdinand, when Columbus introduced those most splendid products of
the American tropics.

Nor can the exigencies of protection have evolved the glaring colors
of the West Indian hornbill. The _toco_ (toucan), as the Cubans call
the yellow-billed species, can be descried from a distance of two
hundred yards, and is, indeed, not anxious to be admired at close
range. Old specimens get as wary as mountain ravens, but, like crows,
become ridiculously tame in captivity, and will follow their
proprietors with loud croaks, every now and then opening their
lunch-trap to indicate their desire for refreshment. They are, on the
whole, the hardiest of all tropical birds, and can weather the winters
of our coast towns as far north as Wilmington, in open-air cages,
owing perhaps to their habit of extending their excursions to the high
mountain ranges of their native land.

[Illustration: THE SMALLEST BIRD.]

Economical Nature rarely wastes the gift of song on a bird of bright
plumage, but it is less easy to understand why so many feathered
beauties should have been afflicted with harsh and positively
repulsive voices. The horrid screams of the peacocks, guinea hens, and
macaws can hardly be supposed to charm their mates, and are too easily
recognized to deter their natural enemies. But the roars (there is no
more adequate word) of some species of hornbills would almost seem
intended to serve the latter purpose.

"The voice of the _Buceros bicornis_," says Wallace, "can be plainly
heard at a distance of a mile, so that the amazement of travelers
visiting its haunts seems explicable enough. Its screams may be
described as something between the bray of a jackass and the shriek of
a locomotive, and are not surpassed in power by any sound that an
animal is capable of making. They re-echo through the hills to such a
degree that it is difficult to assign the noise to a bird, and are
sometimes kept up so continuously as to become absolutely unbearable."

The condor and the harpy eagle have not found their way across the
Caribbean Sea, but the West Indies boast three varieties of fish
eagles, several species of mountain falcons, and a curious singing
owl, the _oriya_, that chants its serenades in the plaintive strain of
the whip-poor-will, and is dreaded by the Porto Rico darkeys as a bird
of ill-omen:

      "Grita l'oriya: Venga amigo,
      Venga conmigo a mi patria,
      Venga te-digo!"

Small hooting owls abound, and there are four species of sparrow
hawks, one of them not much larger than a finch.

It is probably the smallest bird of prey, and there is no doubt that
one species of West Indian humming bird is the smallest bird on earth,
the _Vervain colibri_, of Jamaica, that hides its nest under an orange
leaf, and, though an insect-eater, could be easily overpowered by an
able-bodied bumblebee. In beauty some of the south Cuban species rival
those of the Amazon Valley, and frequent every flowering shrub from
the jungles of the coast lands to the highland meadows of the Sierra
Maestra. In Hayti there are parklike plateaus where they often appear
in swarms at a time of the year when the forests of the foothills are
drenched by the afternoon cloudbursts of the rainy season, and on some
of the smaller Antilles they are seen only during the flowering period
of special plants.

In the solitudes of the Morne Range (San Domingo) mountain ravens rear
their brood in the crevices of steep rocks, and fiercely attack birds
of prey, not excepting the black-crested eagle, that now and then
visits the sierras in quest of conies. But the winged constables of
the highlands rarely leave their mountain reservation. Of
Abd-el-Wahab, the Arabian heretic, it used to be said that "Mohammedan
zealots shrank in affright from his superior fanaticism," and on the
midway terraces of the Dominican sierras the persecution mania of the
giant crow yields to that of the great shrike, the _Lanius rufus_,
that operates pairwise and assails all winged comers with absolutely
reckless courage.

The raven of the Mornes seems to be identical with the cosmopolitan
forager that is found in the uplands of the eastern continent from
the bleak summit regions of the Hindu-Kush to the sierras of Portugal,
and from the Atlas to the Norwegian Alps; but there are several
exclusively West Indian species of the genus _Corvus_, including a
steel-blue rook that flits about the Cuban coffee plantations and has
a curious habit of perching on a stump and talking to itself in a sort
of croaking chuckle for half hours together.

The _gallinæ_, as might be expected from their limited wing-power, are
well represented in the number of individuals, rather than of species.
Turkeys, though abundant in the coast forests of Central America, are
not found wild in any part of the West Indies, where the perennial
presence of berries would be as inviting as the absence of foxes.

[Illustration: THE CARIBBEAN ALBATROSS.]

In the mountains some species of curassow have, however, developed
into a stately game bird, the _Oreophasis niger_, or highland
"pheasant," that lays a dozen large eggs, and in its courtship season
becomes so infatuated that it can be approached and killed with a
common walking-stick. The consequent persecution has made it rather
scarce in famine-stricken Cuba, but in Hayti it can still be seen in
troops of a dozen or more, scratching up the dry leaves of the sierra
forests, or pecking at insect-haunted shrubs, exactly like a flock of
Tennessee turkeys.

There are also several varieties of true pheasants, and two species of
quail (besides the above-mentioned _codornilla_), and in eastern Cuba
numerous barnyard chickens have taken to the woods and become so shy
that it seems a puzzle how their ancestors in the coast range of
Burmah could ever be captured and domesticated. They still practice
polygamy, combined with a system of co-operative housekeeping, to
judge from the number of eggs that are often found in one nest. At
the approach of an unfeathered biped the hen bird takes wing with a
screech, and is apt to vanish for the rest of that day. The roosters
are rarely seen, their glaring colors having faded into more
protective shades of olive and brown, but at dawn of day their shrill
reveille can be heard from afar in the heart of the pathless jungle
woods.

[_To be continued._]




INSANE CHARACTERS IN FICTION AND THE DRAMA.

BY PROF. CESARE LOMBROSO.


One of the things that most strikes one who compares the ancient
theater, and even the theater of a few years ago, with the modern
theater, is the enormous difference in the character of the
personages, and particularly the curious frequency of insane as
principal personages in the modern theater. We have come to such a
point that one may be almost sure that in reading over a new play, by
Ibsen, for example, he will find three or four insane personages in
it, if, the characters are not all so. These madmen have
characteristics so particularized as to seem as if they might have
been depicted by an alienist. If the protagonists are not mad, they
are agitated by such violent and strange passions as the ordinary
world never meets in life; which it therefore refuses to accept when
they are described in a scientific book, but nevertheless receives
them when it sees them in the scenes or meets them in the romances of
the great modern novelists.

Ibsen, for example, has made a most exact picture of the progressive
general paralysis which arises, precisely as he depicts it, in men of
genius, of great mental activity, who have wasted their hereditary
power in pleasures or excessive work; and there is in them both
impulsiveness and want of will power, complete perversion of all the
instincts, and mental confusion, alternating here and there with
genial flashes; but he is wrong in accumulating in a single subject
the maladies of a large number of diseased, and therefore exaggerating
their eccentricities--as he exaggerates atavism and heredity of
disease when he makes the morbid son repeat the same incoherent
phrases as the father from whom he inherits his disorder used.

Just and true, however, is that other form of heredity under which
from a father corrupted by licentious indulgence and by alcohol, and
criminally vicious, is born, besides a paresic son, a lascivious and
criminal daughter, who throws herself into prostitution at the first
opportunity without any special cause.

So, too, that love of art existing now as only a dream, and that
egotistic good nature which enjoys the advantages of a mother's care
without gratitude, those short accesses of genial eloquence followed
by fury which burst out from the midst of apathy, and which are
drowned in the intoxication of alcohol with a complete, immediate
forgetfulness of everything, are specific traits of paralytic
dementia.

Ibsen, in Hedda Gabler, describes to us a neurotic woman who, being
pregnant, and therefore suffering more acute attacks, avenges herself,
though married, upon her former lover, who had left her, by burning
the manuscripts which he expected to make him famous. Virile, like all
criminals, she nursed her resentment from youth.

In the Pillars of Society the great political characters are rogues
and neurotics.

In Berkmann the true criminal banker comes into play. He does not kill
or ravish, but appropriates the money belonging to his bank under the
illusion that he will be able to make great gains with it through the
accomplishment of wonderful things that will secure to him his single
joy--power; and that he can then restore the sum with redoubled
interest.

This case is of a kind of very frequent occurrence, and shows a
complete absence in the banker of affection and of moral sense. He
sacrifices the woman who loves him to further the desires of an
accomplice. He has a faithful friend who, robbed by him, continues to
visit him every day and give him the solace of admiration even when
all despise him; and he repels him when he fails to absolve him and to
believe in the possibility of his return to power. Later the defaulter
pretends that he has studied his own case, and has probed it in every
way, with the result of a complete acquittal of himself. And why all
this? Because he has used the money of others for great purposes: to
connect seas, to excavate the millions that are shut up in the bosom
of the earth and are crying out to be brought into the light. Thus it
is that with the combined genius and delirium of megalomaniacs he
hears the call of the minerals and the groaning of the ships longing
to be set free. Conscience, duty, and probity do not exist for him. He
believes that his quality as a man of genius permits him everything;
therefore he sacrifices to his chimeras the beings who love him most.
"I am," he says, "like a Napoleon disabled by a shot in his first
battle"; and he does not perceive that he has grown old, that he has a
mortal heart disease; and he dreams of returning to power and of
hearing men ask the benefit of his advice, and no longer talks with
anybody, because there is nobody but his old lover who does not
believe him guilty.

Finally, repulsed by all, he plunges into the whirl of life and the
torment of the mountain, and dies at last of syncope; while his
equally egotistical son deserts the mother who adores him to go to
the south with the wealthy Amasia, daughter of his father's enemy.

In Dostoievski, madmen, especially epileptics, constitute the absolute
majority of the characters; or else they are born criminals, such as
my school has attempted to identify by the figures on the hand.

"This strange family," he writes in The House of the Dead, "had an air
which attracted notice at the first glance." All the prisoners were
melancholy, envious, terribly vain, presumptuous, susceptible, and
formal in the highest degree. Vanity ruled always, without the least
sign of shame or repentance or the least sorrow over the commission of
an offense. Nearly all the convicts dreamed aloud or raved during
sleep. Most usually they spoke words of abuse and slang, talked of
knife and axe. "We are a ruined people," they said; "we have no
bowels; therefore we cry out in the night."

This impossibility of feeling remorse or penitence, along with vanity
and exaggerated love of pomp, are characteristics well known to all
observers. But other traits were manifested perhaps more conspicuous,
and such as are common to children. On feast days the more elegant
ones dressed gorgeously, and could be seen parading themselves through
the barracks. Pleasure in being well dressed amounted to childishness
in them.

Reasoning has no power upon men like Petroff, because they have not
any decisive will. If they have, there are no longer obstacles to it.
Such persons are born with an idea that moves them unconsciously all
their lives hither and thither. They are quiet till they have found
some object that strongly arouses their desire; then they no longer
spare even their heads. "More than once have I wondered to see how
Petroff robbed me in spite of the affection he had for me. This
happened to him at intervals, when he had a strong desire to drink. A
person like him is capable of assassinating a man for twenty-five
soldi, only to drink a litre; on other occasions he would scorn
thousands of rubles. He often confessed his thefts to me, lamenting
that I no longer had the objects, but showed no penitence for having
stolen them; bore reproofs because he thought they were inevitable, or
because he deserved to receive them; because I ought to punish him to
compensate myself for the things I had lost, but thought within
himself that they were trifles that one ought to be above speaking
of."

Further on the novelist speaks of the smuggler by profession, a
pleasant fellow, condemned for life for his offenses, who could not
lose the instinct for smuggling brandy into the prison. He received
only a ridiculous profit, was greatly afraid of the rod, although he
had rarely passed under it, wept, swore that he would not offend any
more, and then fell down.

Zola also reproduces my epileptic moral madman in _La Bête Humaine_,
in the alcoholic in _L'Assommoir_, the paranoiac in Work, and himself
confesses to having taken the brief of his immortal chain of romances,
Rougon, from a study made by Aubry in a provincial family celebrated
for its richness in degenerates, criminals, and insane, all derived
from a dull, neurotic Keratry.

Daudet depicts in Jack a series of _mattoidi_, that particular species
of insane which I first discovered, that occupies a position between
paranoiacs, geniuses, and imbeciles.

ANCIENT ROMANCE AND THEATER.--We turn now to the ancient theater and
romance. All the Roman novels of Petronius and Apuleius are rich in
obscene, mythological, and magical adventures, most improbable and
satirical, without ever defining a character or including a real
madman.

In the ancient Greek theater, while the idea of heredity is
discernible under the form of fate, while violent passion is every now
and then depicted under marvelous forms, while anomalies strike us,
and furies of Ajax and Dejanira, of Orestes and Oedipus, and the
melancholy of Philoctetes, they all still have a common type, which is
not perceived in ordinary life. They are madmen who do not exist in
any asylum, who seem symbolical, and have little correspondence with
the men of the mythological and heroic epoch to which they all
belonged; they never, except in Euripides, present a specific
personage, nor ever, unless with rare exceptions--as in the Persians
of Æschylus and a few other lost works, like the Siege of
Miletus--deal with contemporary historical facts.

These poets were concerned with the symbol, the moral, the tradition,
and, if I may be permitted the term, the blasphemy, the declamation,
rather than with depicting the person. This is further seen in the
comedy of the Greek decadence, and still further in that of the
Romans, in which, except in the political squibs, the same personages
nearly always appear, as well as showing out of the masks intended for
the common people--and these figures have come down to us. There are
nearly always the old miser or rake, the go-between slave, the
braggart soldier. The plots were likewise the same: changed children,
reconciled lovers, except in the Greek political satires, in which the
demerits of the adversary were exaggerated into the most atrocious
caricature, and which became like real humorous journals of the
political trifles of the day.

Yet these highly cultivated peoples, agitated by grand public
passions, had absorbing, moving controversies--the struggles of the
Gracchi, the banishment of Themistocles and Aristides, and the varying
fortunes of Marius, of which no trace is found. Nor, for the rest, did
the Latins, who were our masters, and were, as we are after them,
copyists, followers in the footsteps of their Greek predecessors,
readapt contemporary events to their dramatic lines. We in our turn,
down to Goldoni and Molière, and even to this very century, have
copied those ancient comic and tragic writers, warming them up afresh
from Orestes and Clytemnestra, and from events which had not the least
echo among us. Trissin, Maffei, and Alfieri delineated more or less,
on one side tyrants, on the other tyrannicides, which have little to
distinguish them from one another. So in Schiller and Goethe, all the
passions are of the scene rather than of personages. Thus Faust, for
example, and Margaret, are not persons who have a special character.
They are, in fact, personages who cover a symbol, who would tell the
story of literature, the story of the beautiful, the skepticism of
knowledge, but they tell it with a number of interesting, moving
facts, without delineating an individuality. Faust is neither very
good nor very bad, since he with his easy way of speaking commits
rogueries of every kind till finally he is redeemed. He is a
scientific student with a passion for investigation, but in his
enthusiasm, instigated by the devil or by doubt, he too often deserts
the search for the truth for that of pleasure, too often forsakes the
studies that had ennobled his life from youth, and as a man to enjoy
the nights of the Brocken, and worse, the favors of Margaret, of
Helen, till the moment when he redeems himself by saving a people; but
he does this at the last instant, when he is about to die, and has
nothing more to enjoy. Margaret, too, is a child like other children,
who, like so many others, suffers herself to be beguiled by manly
beauty, and has no good qualities except that of being able to die
with fortitude, hoping with the penalty to expiate the sin, which is,
in fact, more the devil's than hers.

The elder Dumas invented an immense diverting confusion of facts, but
his personages are always the same, and are the occasion, the
instrument, the setting of the adventures.

THE REASONS FOR THIS ABSENCE.--The inquiry into the reasons of this
absence of insane persons in the older romances and dramas is a
curious one. The first cause lies evidently in the law of proceeding
in every organism as in every work from the simple to the complex. As
in penal law, not the criminal but the crime was studied at first,
while now both are studied together; as in primordial medicine only
the disease was studied, while now the patient is studied first of
all; so in the drama and in comedy, in the measure that the thought
has become discriminating, it has substituted or rather associated
with observation of the fact _per se_, that of the author of the fact.
The study, of course, exacts more acumen, but it also better satisfies
our reinvigorated culture and opens broader horizons to us.

We have thus done more than abandon the pedantesque scale of the old
time and the mere study of the fact; we have introduced characters
into the personages, which, while they correspond to living and real
characters that we have under our eyes, attempt to resolve a problem
and teach us a moral, and go so far as to represent to us a symbolical
idea which is a pure abstraction of the author's, reaching thence the
maximum of complication.

Naturally, such salient characters as madmen, eccentrics, and
criminals would not be likely to escape the notice of the dramatist,
who finds in them motives for great effects without departing from
truth and probability.

But there is another more material reason for the recent introduction
of insane characters into the theater, and for their greater frequency
and participation in real life. It has been remarked that insane
persons have multiplied a hundredfold with civilization, to such an
extent that where a few years ago one madhouse was enough, now five
hundred and six are needed. Taking, for example, the statistics of the
most progressive country in the world, those of the United States,
furnished by its invaluable census report,[A] we see that the number
of insane persons, which was 15,610 in 1850, 24,042 in 1860, and
37,432 in 1870, rose in 1880 to 91,994; while the population, from
23,191,876 in 1850, increased to 38,558,371 in 1870, to 50,155,783 in
1880--that is, while the population doubled in a little more than
thirty years, the insane increased sixfold; so, in the last decade the
increase in population was thirty per cent, and that of insane one
hundred and fifty-five per cent.

In France[B] there were 131.1 insane per 100,000 inhabitants in 1883,
133 in 1884, 136 in 1888. These figures indicate that the number of
insane is larger in the most civilized countries, and is increasing
every year. It may indeed be said that many of these insane are not
produced but are only revealed by civilization, and that the opening
of the large asylums has caused a considerable number to be brought
into the light who were not known of before. It is true that the
greater care we give now to the insane, as well as to consumptives,
makes them longer-lived. And it is true that as the mind grows
enlightened criminals come to be regarded as insane and thus increase
the apparent number of such. But all this is not sufficient to explain
a doubling in a decade, a tenfold increase in twenty years.

We know, too, that civilization has brought on the development of new
forms of disease, which hardly existed before. For example, general
progressive paralysis was formerly so rare that no special name was
given to it till our time, while now it forms the larger quota of the
maladies of the wealthy, of thinkers, and of military men. Epilepsy
has greatly increased in its psychical form, so that what are called
psychical and obscure epilepsy are a revelation of our times, and that
its close association with crime (which I believe to be one of the
sure facts of modern psychiatry) is still accepted by only a very few
alienists, not to say that it is rejected with indignation, and, I
will remark, with profound ignorance, by most modern jurists.

Alcoholism, too, has taken on enormous proportions. Not that the
ancients did not drink, but rather that pure alcohol had not yet been
introduced; while in the middle ages it passed for one of the most
efficacious remedies--_aqua vita_, living water. Dr. Beard has made a
most judicious observation in America which I have been able to verify
in Sicily--that there must be a very advanced degree of civilization,
or rather of degeneracy produced by civilization, for inebriety to be
transformed into that aggregation of disasters, especially of the
nervous system, which is called alcoholism. Now we have not alcoholism
only, but morphinism, cocainism, all stimuli of the nervous system,
which are used by barbarians as potent excitants, but not to the point
of producing stable alterations except in rare cases, like the _amuck_
of the Malays.

And now, we all of us, at least in the capitals and the great centers,
find ourselves consumed by a feverish activity which makes the mind
labor much more than Nature intended it should, under which is
produced all this mass of neurasthenics, hystericals, besides the
multitudes of moral insane, profoundly egotistical persons, without
affection and wholly directed by a powerful passion for gold, for
which they sacrifice everything, even salvation!

And, finally, we have that group of semi-insane, which I call
_mattoidi_, and who are known as _détraqués_ in France and _cranks_ in
North America--that is, those who have the livery of genius with a
substratum of weakness and the practical cunning of the average man,
who betray their errors only when they write, who hardly exist save
among males (with a few exceptions, like Michel) and in the great
centers. I have never seen them in the country. Civilization is now
depopulating the country and building up the cities, as it is also
augmenting physical excitants with alcoholism, morphinism, etc.
Civilization emblazons the baton of the marshal, and not only of the
marshal but of the president of the republic, in the eyes of everybody
who can read and write. Why, then, should we not suppose that
civilization can further derange the equilibrium of mental labor and,
indirectly, therefore cause an increase of insanity?

Not only has the number of insane increased, but their importance in
society has multiplied fourfold; for which reason we can not fail to
give them attention. The morally insane in politics and the
megalomaniac insane in the bank who inspired Ibsen are to be found
walking around in every country. The blood-criminal, transmuted into
the forger and the bankrupt, penetrates into our houses, and we suffer
from him every day; while the insane man at first was not regarded, or
was adored under the form of a saint or hated as a wizard, possessed
of the devil always, or seemed a phenomenon strange to society, a
species of extraplanetary meteor. If we add that the degeneration
provoked by the abuses of civilization has begotten a multitude of
forms akin to madness which afford a field for combinations now
tragic, now strangely comic--like the phobia by which one is afraid to
cross a room, or avoids a certain group of words, or refuses to know
how many doors and windows there are on the street, or can not be at
ease without saying sexual pacifying formulas; a class who with their
perverted tastes form a real new world apart; and they all may inspire
new dramatic settings forth.

As a third cause we add that in our age psychology has penetrated into
all departments. There are psychologies of the senses, of the
sentiments, of the will, the psychology of the crowd, of the insane,
of criminals, and finally the psychology of the cell, or at least of
the infusoria (Binet). Therefore, as statistics is applied to history,
to politics, to religion, in the same way psychology has at last
entered into romance and the drama, and has taken the lion's share.
And, far from being repelled by the public, the authors who use it or
abuse it, like Euripides and to a certain point Shakespeare, win the
admiration of the public; and we are proud to see Zola taking from
_L'Uomo delinquente_ the Jacques of his _Bête humaine_ to make an
immortal figure of him, and Dostoiewski depicting innate criminals in
his House of the Dead, and the criminaloid in his Crime and
Punishment; and we do not despise Bourget when, making more a
caricature of psychology than a psychology, he assumes to apply it to
the toilets of women and the Parisian _cocottes_ under the form of a
psychology of love.

It may at first sight seem a contradiction that we have shown that
there were also found in antiquity at great intervals dramatic poets
and romancers like Shakespeare, Dante, and Euripides who, led by the
observing and creative instinct, did not confine themselves to events,
but studied characters too, and, keenly perceiving the dramatic
potencies in the character of insanity, treasured it up in their
works. Thus Euripides depicts Helena, vain even into her old age,
saving a part of the hair she was offering at the tomb of her sister
so as not to lose what remained of her former beauty; and Orestes has
not the simple bestial fury depicted by Æschylus, but has choreic
movements, genial intervals, and a tendency to suicide, which show
that the author had attained a true conception of the maniac.

In the Mahabharata the maiden Damaianti is described as made insane by
love (Book II, st. iii) and Nalo, who, possessed by the demon Kali,
stakes his kingdom on the dice, and, denying his wife, abandons her in
the wood:

"And with soul slave to the thought, discolored face, and all absorbed
in sighs, now lifting up the head, now musing, bereft of sense, you
would say; a sudden pallor came on. With mind occupied with one
desire, nor sleep, nor the table, nor the sight of familiar friends
afforded pleasure, nor day nor night gave repose. Ah! poor miserable
one! thus exclaiming and bursting into tears, by that lament, by those
soul-sick acts, she was recognized by her friends."

Niceforus has shown how Dante in his Inferno has delineated in the
damned the characteristics which my school gives to the born criminal.
Shakespeare has done better, and has divined many criminal
characteristics through the greater intensity of the crime in the
criminal woman. Virile even when compared with the criminal man, Lady
Macbeth is crueler than her husband, and, more than that, has many of
the characteristics of men:

      "Bring forth men-children only,
      For thy undaunted mettle should compose
      Nothing but males."

And Macbeth, as cool in the crime as the artful contriver of it, is
hysterical and hypnotic, and in the accesses reproduces the acts and
words of the tragedy, showing that the author knew that hysterics and
somnambulists often repeat the acts and the emotions which mark the
climax of their malady.

Hamlet has the folly of doubts and hallucinations, simulates the
ravings of a madman, but in his suspicious cunning discovers and
anticipates what is contemplated to his harm, is homicidal through
fear, and is yet often discreet, and a good lover, save that his love
vanishes before the fixed idea.

In Ophelia, disappointed love, the contact with a madman or a
pretended one, the death of her father almost under her very eyes,
provoke a species of madness which would now be called mental
confusion, with vague ideas of persecution, dim recollections of love
betrayed and of her father, incoherent and confused expressions ending
in automatic suicide. This confirms our conclusions.

Genius has also anticipated an epoch in the use and abuse of lunatics,
just because time is canceled for genius, because genius anticipates
the future work of centuries. But on this subject the inquiry is
pertinent why, while in the complaisant literary world such creations
as the Argenson of Daudet, the Jack of Zola, and the Eliza of Goncourt
find, if not an immediate, a kindly and ready acceptance--while all
the great artists, even the most ancient ones, have given the type
which I assign to the born delinquents to executioners and
criminals--the world has refused to accept the existence of the
criminal type of insanity in genius, and the relations in criminals
between epilepsy and crime which are nevertheless received in romance
and the drama. It is because when we are in the presence of true
figures, made to move before us under a strong light by the great
artists, the consciousness of the truth which lies dormant in all of
us, smothered and broken under distortion by the schools, reawakens,
and rebels against the conventional forms which they have imposed; all
the more so because the charm of art has vastly magnified the lines of
the truth, has rendered them more evident, and has thus much
diminished the effort required to master them. If, on the other hand,
we base our conclusion upon cold statistics and what I should call a
skeleton study of the facts, we find the old views rising in confusion
with those of sentiment and the artistic sense, and we arrive at
nothing.


FOOTNOTES:

[A] Compendium of the Tenth Census of the United States, Part II, p.
1659. See documents in the new statistical laboratory, the only one in
Italy, of Professor Cognetti, recently published at Turin.

[B] Bodio. Bulletin de l'Institut international de Statistique, 1889,
pp. 112 and 128. See some Sanitary Statistics in Italy and other
European States, by Dr. Rasori.




COLONIAL EXPANSION AND FOREIGN TRADE.

BY JACOB SCHOENHOF.


Fifty years have elapsed since the adoption of free trade by England.
It was hoped that the free entrance of commodities extended to all the
world would pave the way to an era of mutual peace and good will. But,
judging by the political situation, and taking the armaments as an
outward sign of good intentions, the era of peace and good will among
nations is certainly far off. To get a trading advantage here and a
concession from a semibarbarous country there is still the ambitious
striving of the cabinets and the diplomacy of Europe. To give the
striving emphasis, industry is taxed to the breaking point and labor
to the starving point. Russia exhausts her resources in a railroad
through the Siberian waste in her endeavor to obtain an outlet to the
sea, which is jealously closed to her at the southwestern end of her
dominions by England. The trader of Manchester, fearing for his
markets, grows frantic at the prospect of Russian cotton goods being
brought to China or to India. The mere acquisition of a port in
Manchuria by Russia threatens to seal his doom. But he might look on
with complacency. Russia's labor is very dear, capital is dear, wages
are on the Asiatic level, famine still stalks through the land,
intercommunication is made difficult by the lack of roads, and her
wonderful natural resources lie unimproved because the eyes of greed,
like those of the dog crossing the stream, are turned on the coveted
piece of meat he sees reflected in the water, and to grasp which he
drops the one he holds in his mouth. France bristles with bayonets,
and is constantly at pains to increase her naval armaments, about
whose seaworthiness her own minister of marine expresses suspicions,
in obedience to a nervous restlessness for foreign acquisition.
England, after her feat in civilizing savages and barbarians in the
customary fashion, shown again at Omdurman, is ready to turn her war
dogs on France, because the latter has the temerity to demand a slice
of Soudanese territory. Well might she have given as hush-money, or
for the mere grace of the action, a few thousand square miles of a
country closed to access except by the permission of Great Britain,
which has successfully pre-empted every desirable bit of land in
sight.

Germany, instead of using her newly liberated energies at home in an
endeavor to elevate the miserable condition of her working classes,
taxes their bread and meat, never too freely supplied, to increase the
size of her armies and the number of her battle ships. The defense and
expansion of her colonial empire is her leading thought. A strange
paradox: The workingman and the peasant are overburdened with taxes on
the necessaries of life, so as to procure markets for a limited
quantity of factory products outside of the field secured in open
competition.

While professing friendship and brotherly love, they all have their
eyes on their neighbor's throat, fearful only lest the other might
clutch first.

As we are in danger of being drawn into this vortex, it is well to
examine the range of possibilities and see what the trade amounts to,
to obtain which the scientific intellect of Europe and America has
been strained to its limits to discover new means of destruction for
attack and defense unknown to the other brothers in the common bond of
civilization.

It is a matter of course that trade among European nations does not
come within this circle, nor of European nations with the United
States. It does not depend on battle ships. In the annexed tables I
have classified the countries in three classes: (1) Independent
states; (2) colonies of European countries, populated by people of
European stock; and (3) colonies and dependencies of European
countries, but of non-European stock.

I have reduced the values of imports and exports of the different
countries, published in their own currencies, to American dollars. As
the values are paper currencies, silver currencies, or conventional
values, and of fluctuating rates, I have in such instances taken a
yearly average, which will be found in the footnotes of the tables.


_I. Trade of Independent Countries other than of Europe and North
America._

  Key:
  (A) Number of inhabitants.
  (B) Importations. Thousands of dollars.
  (C) Exportations. Thousands of dollars.
  (D) Imports per capita. Dollars.
  (E) Exports per capita. Dollars.

  ---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+------
       NAMES OF COUNTRIES.   |   (A)   |   (B)   |   (C)   |  (D)  |  (E)
  ---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+------
          _Asia_ (1895).     |         |         |         |       |
                             |         |         |         |       |
  China[A]                   | 383,253 | 128,772 | 107,499 |   .34 |   .28
  Japan[B]                   |  42,270 |  90,681 |  62,443 |  2.14 |  1.47
  All other states           |  27,000 |  30,000 |  82,000 |  1.10 |  1.18
                             |         |         |         |       |
            _America._       |         |         |         |       |
                             |         |         |         |       |
  Argentina[C]               |   4,000 | 103,058 | 108,671 | 26.50 | 27.17
  Brazil[D]                  |  16,000 |  96,000 |  97,000 |  6.00 |  6.06
  Chile[E]                   |   2,700 |  69,200 |  72,900 | 25.62 | 27.00
  Peru[F]                    |   2,600 |   7,560 |   9,000 |  2.90 |  3.30
  Mexico[G]                  |  12,600 |  42,000 |  22,000 |  3.32 |  1.76
  Uruguay[H]                 |     800 |  25,000 |  30,000 | 31.25 | 37.50
  Venezuela[I]               |   2,300 |  17,000 |  22,000 |  7.40 |  9.56
  All other states           |  11,300 |  34,000 |  46,800 |  3.00 |  4.14
                             |         |         |         |       |
        _South Africa_       |         |         |         |       |
                             |         |         |         |       |
  Independent states         |   1,000 |  75,000 |  12,000 | 75.00 | 12.00
                             +---------+---------+---------+       |
    Total independent states | 505,800 | 718,271 | 622,313 |       |
                             +=========+=========+=========+       |
  Asiatic states             | 452,500 | 249,453 | 201,942 |       |
  American and South African |  53,300 | 468,818 | 420,371 |       |
  ---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+------

  FOOTNOTES:

  [A] Haikwan tael, 74.9 cents.

  [B] Yen, 52.9 cents.

  [C] Peso, gold, 96.5 cents.

  [D] Milreis, paper (1896), 20-1/2 cents.

  [E] Peso, gold.

  [F] Soler, 43 cents.

  [G] Dollar (47 cents) for exports, gold dollar for imports.

  [H] Peso, $1.

  [I] Bolivar, 19.3 cents.


The year is 1896, and where a different one is taken it is so marked
against the country in the table. The figures only represent the
direct merchandise trade. All specie and bullion shipments are
eliminated from the account.


_II. Trade of India and Dependencies and of Colonies and other
Possessions of the United Kingdom (Year ending March, 1897)._

  Key:
  (A) Number of inhabitants.
  (B) Importations. Thousands of dollars.
  (C) Exportations. Thousands of dollars.
  (D) Imports per capita. Dollars.
  (E) Exports per capita. Dollars.

  ---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+------
     NAMES OF COLONIES AND   |         |         |         |       |
       OTHER POSSESSIONS.    |   (A)   |   (B)   |   (C)   |  (D)  |  (E)
  ---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+------
  India and its              |         |         |         |       |
      dependencies[A]        | 290,690 | 284,026 | 378,732 |   .97 |  1.30
                             |         |         |         |       |
            _Colonies._      |         |         |         |       |
                             |         |         |         |       |
  Cape Colony                |   1,820 |  91,800 |  39,000 | 50.04 | 20.15
  Natal                      |     778 |  18,000 |   6,500 | 23.15 |  8.20
  Gold Coast and other       |         |         |         |       |
      Central African        |         |         |         |       |
      possessions            |  36,700 |  19,000 |  17,000 |   .52 |   .46
  Canada                     |   5,125 | 118,000 | 121,000 | 23.05 | 24.04
  West Indies                |   3,614 |  30,000 |  25,000 |  8.33 |  6.94
  Australasia and Oceanica   |   4,793 | 204,500 | 210,000 | 42.65 | 43.75
                             +---------+---------+---------+       |
    Trade of all countries   |         |         |         |       |
        under British flag   | 343,520 | 765,326 | 797,232 |       |
                             +=========+=========+=========+       |
  Trade of colonies with     |         |         |         |       |
      white population       |  16,130 | 461,320 | 411,584 |       |
  Trade of Asiatic           |         |         |         |       |
      dependencies           | 290,690 | 284,026 | 378,732 |       |
  ---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+-------+------

  FOOTNOTE:

  [A] Rupee, 32 cents. For Straits Settlement and Ceylon, Mexican
  dollars @ 47 cents.


_III. Trade of Foreign Possessions of all other Countries than the
United Kingdom._

  Key:
  (A) Number of inhabitants in thousands.
  (B) Importations in thousands of dollars.
  (C) Exportations in thousands of dollars.
  (D) Imports per capita. Dollars.
  (E) Exports per capita. Dollars.
  ------------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------+-------
    COUNTRIES AND THEIR   |  (A)   |  (B)   |  (C)   |  (D)  |  (E)
   COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.  |        |        |        |       |
  ------------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------+-------
  _A. France_ (1894).     |        |        |        |       |
                          |        |        |        |       |
  Asia                    | 21,821 | 16,000 | 25,000 |   .73 |  1.14
  Africa, outside of      |        |        |        |       |
    Algeria and Tunis     | 24,500 | 13,000 | 22,000 |   .53 |   .50
  America and Oceanica    |    460 | 14,500 | 12,600 | 31.50 | 27.40
                          |        |        |        |       |
  _B. Germany_ (1897).    |        |        |        |       |
                          |        |        |        |       |
  Africa                  | 10,200 |  2,189 |  1,078 |   .21 |   .10
  New Guinea              |    400 |     72 |     50 |   .18 |   .12
                          |        |        |        |       |
  _C. Italy._             |        |        |        |       |
                          |        |        |        |       |
  Africa                  |    400 |  5,600 |  3,000 |       |
                          |        |        |        |       |
  _D. Netherlands_ (1895).|        |        |        |       |
                          |        |        |        |       |
  East India              | 34,000 | 61,000 | 89,600 |  1.80 |  2.63
                          |        |        |        |       |
  _E._                    |        |        |        |       |
                          |        |        |        |       |
  Philippines             |  7,600 | 11,000 | 20,000 |  1.50 |  2.63
  ------------------------+--------+--------+--------+-------+-------


_Summary of Statistical Tables of the Trade of Colonies and
Dependencies of European States and of Independent States other than
of Europe and the United States._

  Key:
  (A) Number of inhabitants in thousands.
  (B) Importations. Thousands of dollars.
  (C) Exportations. Thousands of dollars.
  (D) Inhabitants. Per cent to total.
  (E) Imports. Per cent to total.
  (F) Exports. Per cent to total.
  ----------------------+----------+---------+---------+-----+-----+-----
  NAMES OF DIVISIONS BY |          |         |         |     |     |
   COUNTRIES, COLONIES, |   (A)    |   (B)   |   (C)   | (D) | (E) | (F)
        AND RACES.      |          |         |         |     |     |
  ----------------------+----------+---------+---------+-----+-----+-----
  Totals of tabulations |          |         |         |     |     |
    I, II, and III      |1,584,099 |1,587,758|1,540,858|100  |100  |100.0
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Under British flag    |  343,520 |  765,320|  797,232| 36  | 48.3| 50.0
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Under all other flags |  605,180 |  818,779|  790,527| 64  | 51.7| 49.8
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Peoples of European   |          |         |         |     |     |
    descent             |   69,430 |  909,020|  831,984|  7.3| 57.4| 52.4
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Peoples of other races|  879,271 |  675,079|  755,774| 92.7| 42.6| 47.6
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Anglo-Saxon           |   17,130 |  519,300|  407,584|  1.8| 32.8| 25.7
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Latin-American        |   52,300 |  389,700|  424,400|  5.5| 24.6| 26.7
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  Asiatic races         |  806,611 |  618,079|  706,274| 85.0| 39.0| 44.0
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  African races         |   72,500 |   57,000|   49,500|  7.7|  3.6|  3.6
                        |          |         |         |     |     |
  States and colonies,  |          |         |         |     |     |
    wool chief export   |   11,100 |  441,300|  394,500|  1.2| 27.8| 24.9
  ----------------------+----------+---------+---------+-----+-----+-----


In examining these tables carefully the reader can form an idea as to
how the world's trade is divided, and see what the world is arming to
its teeth about.

The only Asiatic country about whose trade the possibilities of war
may be entertained is China. Japan has shown her teeth and claws. The
history of Poland, Port Arthur, or Kiao-tchow is not likely to find
repetition on her territory. Only the defenseless tempt the avidity of
the civilizing nations. The import trade of China, an empire with one
fourth the population of the entire world, is but half as much again
as that of Japan, with but one ninth of the population of the
Celestial Empire. Japan's trade has trebled within the last dozen
years. Her imports of merchandise are over two dollars _per capita_.
Those of China are thirty-four cents. It will be said that China
parceled out to modern nations will vastly extend in trading
opportunities. So it may. We have, however, national disposition to
take into consideration. England has devoted her best efforts to
India. After a century spent in bringing the various races to
submission, the process of "benevolent assimilation" is helped along
by a never-ending flow of capital from England. She has become the
teacher and administrator of the people of Hither and Farther India.
It is doubtful whether under existing conditions any better government
for their three hundred millions could be devised by any outer force.
Though England does her utmost, as she understands it, to make the
people under her dominion happy and prosperous, although the rule of
law and a degree of local independence are established, yet she finds
small thanks from her wards. They have their own notions of happiness,
and seem to prefer misery of their selection to the advantages of the
white man's ordering. The fact is, the brown man and the yellow man
have different notions and desires from the white man. No amount of
jostling, pushing, and urging will make them take up our views, our
tastes, our working methods, except in the due development of time.
Our ideas as to necessaries of life and theirs are widely different.
Their simple needs are easily supplied from native hands, who
understand far better than our potters do the clay they have to deal
with. The progress in trade will not be rapid, and will certainly be
disappointing to those who expect to see it extend into general lines
of merchandise. The import trade of India and its dependencies (1897)
is $284,000,000, inclusive of Ceylon and the net trade of the Straits
Settlements. This amount, directly catering to the wants of fully
three hundred millions of people, is but about one third more than the
net import trade of Australasia, with a population of less than five
millions of people. The _per-capita_ consumption of imported
merchandise of the Asiatic possessions of England is ninety-seven
cents; of Australasia, $41.66. I must say here in explanation that the
values of importations of merchandise, as published in the English
returns and lately reproduced by the Bureau of Statistics of the
Treasury Department, Colonial Systems of the World, is $305,000,000,
which would make a showing of $63.33 _per capita_. But in the English
returns the intercolonial trade figures are included. The Treasury
Bureau did not mention this in its publication, and gave thereby a
basis for erroneous deductions. I have deducted all the intercolonial
trade figures of imports and exports from the returns of each of the
Australian colonies, so as to bring the figures to a basis of parity
with the accounts of Canada, and other colonies and dependencies where
no duplications of this kind are possible. The figures of importations
remaining over are reduced by this process to £40,500,000, or about
$200,000,000--$41.66 _per capita_. The inhabitants of the Anglo-Saxon
colonies of the world number but seventeen million. Their net imports
of merchandise are $460,000,000. The seven hundred and thirty millions
of Hindu and Mongolian populations import $530,000,000. These are the
lands of fabled wealth. Antiquity and the middle ages dreamed of
riches inexhaustible in connection with their names. To-day still the
popular belief is that the wealth of nations is dependent on the
conduct of direct trade with the far East. The country can not be rich
whose millions find happiness in a sufficient supply of millet or
rice, whatever the wealth of a small favored class may be. But these
nations were the teachers of the barbarians whose descendants now
populate America and Europe. The disciples have improved on the
masters. We have improved the tools which they invented and applied
new forces of production. We have cheapened the processes of
production. We have quintupled, we have decupled time. But whatever
our improvements in the tools, they are still our masters in the work.
Any one who would endeavor to substitute the product of our mills in
cotton, in silk, in wool, in wood, iron, clay, in lacquer, cloisonné,
or enamel, for theirs, and not see at a glance the hopelessness, would
indeed prove his incapacity for grasping the situation. Our best
producers study with profit the work of China and, chiefly, of Japan,
and are grateful for the inspiration they derive from it. But they do
not attempt to copy. Neither in color effect nor design could they
stand the test of comparison. Five thousand years have been recovered
from the sepulcher under which they had been sleeping. But the oldest
traces unearthed in the valley of the Euphrates still take us back to
the farthest East as the originator of what we cover by the term
"civilization." The Mongolian shares the lot of all who have benefited
the race.

If we can not expect great openings for our mill products in Asia,
Africa is a new field for the civilizing efforts of Europe, and will
repay cultivating, perhaps. The negro has neither factories nor
workshops. There at least is an unlimited field for trade expansion.
Germany, the latest comer, with the zeal of all fresh missionaries, is
eagerly taking up her colonizing mission. The result is not very
encouraging. There is a fine set of buildings with garden spots and
harbor improvements in the settlement at Cameroon, and a well-stocked
graveyard of what were once good German boys, victims of the deadly
climate and of the expansion fever. So far this is the only net
showing to the credit side of the ledger. The territory in Africa
covers nearly one million square miles. The possession of such an
empire is worth a sacrifice, apparently, and Germany is not
parsimonious in this direction. The contribution of the German
Government to the administration fund of the African colonies was
$2,194,000 in 1896-'97. This does not include the expense of
maintaining the military and naval forces stationed in the African
settlements. The annual importations of all the colonies amounted (in
1897) to $2,261,000, inclusive of New Guinea. So it costs the
Government more than one dollar to enable its citizens to do a
dollar's worth of trade. The population is estimated at 10,200,000.
What possibilities stretch out before us, if they could be made to
wear shirts or uniforms like the native police force, which has been
organized at Cameroon! The extent of the territory, however, precludes
the possibility of successfully conducting the missionary effort to
induce them to wear clothes. The question also remains open what
return could be made, even if the recipients could be brought to
appreciate the advantage of a fuller covering of their nakedness than
the traditional one.

France is in possession of territories in Africa, the population of
which is on a more advanced status. The territories of the Senegal
have been under French dominion for a period of two hundred years and
more, and trade relations with the Senegal and Soudan have been
assiduously cultivated. In Asia, Tonquin and Annam were to open the
road to a very active trade with China. She has held undisputed
lodgment since 1814 in Pondicherry and other towns in India that
remained over to her from her East Indian empire conquered by Dupleix
and abandoned by Louis XV's weak policy. Still, with all the tender
care and an expenditure for the colonial service, as per budget of
1898, of about 80,000,000 francs, and not counting the colonial
expense _êtat_ of the ministry of war and of the navy, the entire
export trade of France to her Asiatic possessions is 35,000,000
francs; to her African dominions, outside of Algiers, 22,000,000
francs; and to her American possessions, with barely five hundred
thousand inhabitants, 35,000,000 francs. The territories to which this
trade caters have a population of about twenty-two million in Asia and
twenty-five million in Africa. If we include the French islands in
America and French Guiana, the exports of French merchandise to all
her colonies amount to about 95,000,000 francs. If we include the
allowance for colonial service from the naval and military budget,
France has an expense that exceeds the amount of her colonial export
trade. How much better off France would be if she would drop this
burden! She could do the same trading and save her money, annually
wasted, and her men annually slaughtered to the mania of colonial
expansion.

The forty-five millions peopling the French possessions in Asia and
tropical Africa consume altogether about $30,000,000 worth of foreign
imports. The French share of this is about $11,000,000, or a little
over one third--eleven millions of trade against fourteen millions of
direct expense. The contributions to the American colonies are but
$2,000,000, inclusive of about $1,000,000 to the penal establishment
at Cayenne.

Italy's demonstration of the extent to which this madness can carry
otherwise sane statesmen is fresh in everybody's memory. Outside of
Russia, the poor--meaning the working classes--are in no country of
Europe as poor as in Italy. If we take the production per acre in all
the cereals as a gauge of interior development, then no European
country west of Russia, not excepting Spain, is in a more backward
state. Wise statesmanship would have found here a field for
cultivation sufficiently large to tax all its energies. The peaceful
acquisitions of industry did not satisfy the ambition of the
Government. Conquests in equatorial Africa were deemed more essential
to the kingdom's material welfare, but lately freed from the deadening
grasp of clericalism and absolutism, than the improvement of
opportunities lavishly present at home. What she has cultivated at an
enormous expense of blood and treasure has borne the ordinary harvest
of failure and disaster. The entire import trade of Massowah, to which
the whole world contributed, and which is largely a transit trade,
amounts to about $5,000,000. The expenditure on account of her Red Sea
possessions for the year 1895-'96 is given in the Statesman's Year
Book as 123,738,064 lires ($24,000,000). The contribution to the
maintenance of this her "white man's burden," from 1882 to 1895, was
303,905,926 lires. At present (1897-'98), after the sobering lesson
received in 1896, the net expense is about $3,500,000 (17,000,000
lires).

The three powers--France, Italy, and Germany--point a lesson of
unmistakable significance. The figures speak for themselves. No amount
of expense can make the African and the Asiatic consume an appreciable
amount of European merchandise. No amount of cultivation can make the
tropics endurable to the northern man. Labor and exertion on his part
under the rays of a deadly sun and a miasma-breeding soil are entirely
out of the question. Those who would make the endeavor in the manner
of the temperate zone would only succeed the sooner in reaching the
end of white man's settlement in the tropics, disease and death.

Many point to the Dutch East India settlements as a successful
commercial enterprise. But, taking the best construction given to the
story from the trader's point of view, the present satisfactory
conditions have been reached after a great deal of disappointment,
loss, and bloodshed. A large revenue is acquired from Government sales
of colonial produce; still, with all this added to the other revenues
from land tax, excise, and other duties, the Government has a
deficiency of over 10,000,000 florins a year in her East India
possessions. The budget for 1898 shows an expense _état_ of
146,150,164 florins, which is met by a revenue from all sources of but
135,204,203 florins.

This is the richest part of the Malay world, and for centuries has
been in the possession of Europe's most enlightened people. The
results, if the _per-capita_ unit of imports and exports is taken as a
criterion, are not different from those shown in the account of the
Philippines, governed for centuries by Spain. The loss of their
colonies is ascribed to the oppressive rule which the Spaniards
exercised. The Netherlands, devoting all their efforts to the
development of the resources of the islands, at least during the
greater part of this century, do not show much better results. The
imports _per capita_ of the Dutch possessions are $1.80, and the
exports $2.63. The imports of the Philippines are $1.50 and the
exports $2.63 _per capita_.

From this we may be permitted to deduce that the Malay Islands are not
likely to prove a more thankful field for cultivation by our traders
than to the extent indicated in the trade reports set forth above.

Under the conditions here delineated, it would be inviting all the
risks and dangers connected with expansion and colonization, while
nothing is to be gained in a commercial sense that can not be realized
by the means now in our hands.

All the ends of trade can be attained without territorial expansion.
The trade in the hands of peoples under English sovereignty is open to
all commerce on equal terms. Not even the sovereign country, except in
the recent concessions by Canada, receives a preference. The
protection of the British flag is tendered gratis to the colonies and
dependencies. The imports of these countries cover about one half of
the trade of all the world, outside of Europe and the United States.
Though they have but 4.67 per cent of the population, the Anglo-Saxon
colonies do sixty-nine per cent of the trade of all the colonies and
dependencies of the British Empire.

South and Central America absorb about one fourth--24.6 per cent of
imports and 26.7 per cent of exports--of the world's trade here
summarized. The colonies peopled by Anglo-Saxon population and the
Latin-American states together, though but 7.3 per cent of the
inhabitants, do an importing trade of 57.4 per cent of the trade of
the world here reviewed. The countries trading under the protection of
the British flag and the Latin-American states combined have about
seventy-three per cent of that trade among them. All this trade, as
well as by far the greatest part of the rest, is incontestably
accessible to-day on an equal basis to all the world. The key to it
lies in the best terms, the best value. The trader and not the admiral
governs the field. Prince Heinrich will not succeed better than
Admiral von Diederichs in convincing China of the advantages Germany
can offer if Mr. Carnegie's rails are cheaper than Mr. Krupp's. A
whole fleet of American battle ships will not convince the Asiatics
that our cotton goods are as desirable as the English so long as the
latter make goods suitable to their markets, and the Americans offer
only products calculated to cover the home demands.

The golden rule is a more effective trade opener than the cannon's
mouth. Fair and square dealing among nations does not entail expense,
but brings in good returns. Our national policy, however, has been one
studiously calculated to array the world against us. Like every policy
in behalf of a selfish interest, it injures the foreign people against
which it is directed far less than the nation which devises it.

The trade of Australasia, Argentina, and Uruguay, and the Cape is
based chiefly on wool and hides. The imports of these countries,
numbering but eleven million inhabitants, amount to $440,000,000,
equaling in amount the trade of China, Japan, Persia, and India, with
their seven hundred and fifty million inhabitants. Though but 1.2 per
cent of the population of the world (outside of Europe and the United
States), their imports are 27.8 per cent of the totals of the figures
in the tables. In exports they do about $400,000,000, or 24.9 per cent
of the total sum of exports here given. It would be worth cultivating
friendly relations with them. They are inhabited by people of European
stock, and come nearer to the standard of life of Americans than any
of the other nations of the globe. Our latest effort to draw them
closer to us was the Dingley tariff, with its duty of eleven cents a
pound on greasy wool and of fifteen per cent on raw hides. The action
can not be construed as a very friendly one. But neither is the effect
as calculated by the wise heads who insisted on the provisions of the
wool tariff, the woolen and worsted manufacturers of the East, and the
wool raisers of the West. The wool and woolen trade of America has
suffered many vicissitudes during the thirty-five years of high
tariffs. It has gone through many periods of depression. But it is
doubtful whether at any time more disastrous conditions existed than
have marked the twelve months ending at this writing (March, 1899).

The situation can be appreciated from the fact that wool, imported
prior to the passing of the Dingley tariff, is being reshipped to
England, where it is bringing better prices than can be obtained here
under the ægis of the protective duty of eleven cents a pound. Three
and a half million pounds were shipped in the seven months ending
January 31st.

We should profit by this experience, try to cultivate friendly
relations in parts of the world where advantageous trade connections
can be established, instead of following the _ignis fatuus_ of Asiatic
expansion.




THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.

BY EDMUND NOBLE.


It is an interesting and suggestive fact in Nature study that at the
outset man was thrown utterly upon himself for the very vocabulary of
the world-puzzle which presented itself to him for solution. He had
not only to unriddle his "inscription in an unknown tongue," but to
evolve even the possibility of an explanation out of his inner
consciousness. His first theories of the universe were based, not on
anything which the cosmos was, independently of him, but upon his own
nature and activities as a living animal. This resort to himself as
his chief means of interpretation resulted from the very nature of the
knowing process; for knowledge of things is never in any absolute
sense what things are, but is rather what they are like. When we
cognize an object we do it by referring that object to the class of
objects which in one or more respects it resembles. And as in this
process we draw from the objects most familiar to us the principle of
explanation which we need for the less familiar things that have not
yet become part of our mental possessions, much depends upon priority
in the setting up of mental classes, as well as on the strength of the
impression which they make upon the mind. The earliest and deepest
class impressions are necessarily those which arise out of man's
knowledge of himself--of his body and the parts thereof, of his
corporeal activities, and of his feelings and thoughts; next, of the
bodies of other men and of their movements; finally, in the order of
vividness, of the animate and inanimate objects most nearly related to
his life. It is these classes which, by virtue of their priority and
strength, naturally acquire dominating influence over all later
acquirements, and it is to them that the mind refers the impressions
gained from the more remote inorganic world.

Among the simpler illustrations of the effort man makes to assimilate
the external system to himself are those with which we are more or
less familiar in the domain of language. We find them first in the
forms for gender by which, in all inflectional tongues, inanimate
objects are to this extent likened to living animals. A similar
tendency is at work in the widespread lingual habit of naming things
after parts of the body, as in the case of "door," called the "eye of
the house" by the native of Banks' Island; of "son-tree," the term
applied by the Siamese to "fruit"; of the Malay's use of the noun
"child" for "lock"; of "house-belly," the African Mandingo's
equivalent for "in the house"; and of "hair," often used for "leaf" or
"feather" in many Melanesian languages.[A] In more modern forms of
speech the process is suggested by such expressions as the _head_ of a
bridge, the _eye_ of a needle, the _mouth_ of a river, the _neck_ of
an estuary, the _trunk_ and _arms_ of a tree, the _lungs_ of a
bellows, the _bones_ of an umbrella, the _nose_ of a promontory, the
_ears_ of a book, the _fingers_ of a clock, the _legs_ of a table, the
_veins_ of marble, the _foot_ of a mountain. Then there are analogies
based on the activities of the human body, for when we describe things
as standing, sitting, or lying; as rising, falling, running, or
climbing--when we use expressions like "striking clock," "dancing
light," "sleeping lake," "yawning precipice," "laughing skies,"
"babbling brooks," "raging billows," we are applying to the objects
named terms originally used to describe our own acts. The sense of
hearing, again, is utilized in such expressions as _taube Nuss_ ("with
nothing in the shell") and _taube Kohlen_ ("those which have burned
out"). So the defect of blindness is objectified in the _cæcum vallum_
of Roman speech, in _ciego_, said in Spanish of cheese that "has no
eyes," and in the _blinder Schuss_ of the Germans, whose more familiar
_Augenblick_ everybody recalls. Not less suggestive are the numerous
expressions which project conceptions of life and death into the
environment, such as the _caput mortuum_ (_tête morte_) of chemistry,
_eau vive_ (_Quellwasser_), "dead water" (turn of the tide), _todte
Farbe_ and _lebhafte Farbe_, _vivus lapis_ (firestone), "quicksand"
and "quicksilver," the "dead of night," "dead weight," a "dead level,"
and _todtes Kapital_. Nor must we forget that the reading of vitality
into inorganic objects, common enough among savages, has by no means
disappeared from civilized races. Dr. Stanley Hall's inquiries have
shown that out of forty-eight children just attaining school age,
twenty believed the moon and stars to be alive, fifteen thought a doll
and sixteen thought flowers would suffer pain if burned. One pupil
described the crescent moon as "half stuck" or "half buttoned" into
the sky; the spluttering of coals in a fire was called "barking" by a
girl four years and a half old. Miss Ingelow says that when over two
years old, and for about a year after, she had the habit of
attributing intelligence not only to all living creatures, but even to
stones and manufactured articles.

This projection of words originally descriptive of the human body or
of its activities into the objective world of Nature finds its richest
illustrations in poetry,[B] where it may be held to represent less the
elaborate artifice of a cultured mind than one of the most primitive
tendencies of that mind powerfully swayed by emotion. Yet the process
belongs equally to the more prosaic efforts which man puts forth to
utilize the objects of his environment in the interests of
self-maintenance. One of the earliest of these is seen in the use of
words describing parts of the body to facilitate the description of
the external world in its numerical aspects. Thus the Chinese use for
"two" certain syllables (_ny_ and _ceul_) which originally mean
"ears," the Hottentots employing the word for "hand" in the same
sense. In middle high German the word for "sheaf" (_Schock_) signifies
sixty, and is applied in that sense to all kinds of objects. The
Letts, owing to their habit of throwing fish three at a time, employ
the word _mettens_, "a throw," in the sense of "three." Among the same
people flounders are tied in lots of thirty, whence has arisen the
practice of designating thirty by the word _kahlis_, meaning "cord."
The Quichuas attach the significance of ten to the word _chuncu_,
"heap." The Gallas word for "half" has been traced to the verb
_chaba_, "to break," and is the equivalent of our own word "fraction."
So in a large number of languages the term for hand signifies "five,"
"two hands" meaning ten, and "man" ("two hands and two feet") twenty.

A like origin must be claimed for the measures of space and weight
needed by man in his industrial and commercial activities. The finger,
the thumb, the hand, the palm, the forearm, the foot--the extended
arms, as in the ancient _orgya_, and the extended legs, as in the
modern yard--have all played a fundamental part in determining the
standard measures of the civilized world. To the same class belong the
[Greek: gyê], the extent of field that could be worked by a laborer in
one day; the _stade_, the distance which a good runner could traverse
without stopping to take rest; also measures of time, such as the old
division of the day based on the length of a man's shadow.

The human body was thus of primary importance as a means of
comprehending and coming into relations with the external world. But
men also sought to make the environment intelligible to them by
projecting into it the images gained from the more general aspects of
their life. Such phrases as "pig of iron," "monkey wrench," "battering
ram," "lifting crane," remind us of a period in which objects were
actually shaped so as to enable the mind to accommodate itself more
completely to the thought of their vitality. The Greek sailing vessel,
for example, was so constructed--with the body of a bird, with cheeks,
eyes, and projecting ears--as to make it seem to the navigators of
the time as almost alive. And the dolphins, eagles, ravens, and
dragons which threatened England from the prows of the invading Danish
fleet have had their prototypes in almost every nation that has
betaken itself to the sea.

Not less suggestive are the more general aspects of the process. Our
ancestor called the earth's satellite the "moon," or "measurer,"
because it served him as a divider of time. The familiar grains of
wheat and barley which he harvested became the units of his measures.
So the names of his seasons were based on the fall of the leaves, the
reappearance of particular stars, or the periodical inundations upon
which he depended for his food. The most primitive method in
chronology is that which enables man to orient himself in the world of
time by associating particular lunations with vicissitudes of weather,
with seasonal aspects of vegetation, and with the constantly changing
sights and sounds of the animal world. In the calendar of the
Crees,[C] for example, we find such designations as "duck-month,"
"frog-moon," "leaf-moon," "berries-ripe-month," "buffalo-rutting
moon," "leaves-entirely-changed," "leaves-in-the-trees,"
"fish-catching-moon," "moon-that-strikes-the-earth cold,"
"coldest-moon," "ice-thawing-moon," "eagles-seen-moon." So in the
calendars of Central America and Mexico,[D] the months are named
variously after the arrival of birds, the blossoming of flowers, the
blowing of winds, the return of mosquitoes, and the appearance of
fishes. The Greeks constantly used the movements of birds to mark the
seasons; the arrival of the swallow and kite were thus noted. Hesiod
tells us how the cry of the crane signaled the departure of winter,
while the setting of the Pleiades gave notice to the plowman when to
begin his work. The Incas[E] called Venus "the hairy," on account of
the brightness of her rays, just as the Peruvians named her the
"eight-hour torch," or "the twilight lamp," from the time of her
shining. One at least of the three portions into which the Greeks
divided their night received its name--[Greek: peri lychnôn
haphas]--from the social custom of lighting the lamps at dusk. For
whole races the departure of the sun made night a time of danger, and
man did his best to lessen the mystery of the heavens by filling their
obscure depths with the figures of animals and heroes, or by likening
their shining lines of cosmic cloud to a road or highway for the march
of beings celestial and terrestrial. Thus, for the speakers of
Sanskrit the Milky Way was "The Path of the Gods"; the Lithuanians
dubbed it "The Bird Road"; in Low German it is known as "The Way of
Cows"; the Cymris associated it with the course of the wind; for
Scandinavians it was "The Road of Winter"; the Persians viewed it as
the route along which the straw carrier drew his burden; to this day
the Winnebagoes call it "The Way of the Chiefs."[F]

Science itself is indebted to terms and phrases in which outer
realities are assimilated to the circumstances of the life lived by
man and by the societies which he forms. Such words as "attraction,"
"repulsion," "resistance," "nature," "body," "atom," "current,"
contain obviously anthropomorphic elements. The human origin of the
idea conveyed by the term "inertia" may be more or less veiled by
unfamiliar Latin elements, yet it is recovered for us again in
_Trägheit_, "idleness," the German form of the word. The phrase
"natural selection" contains a teleological element which has more
than once been used to throw discredit on the process which it
describes. And when one observes how persistently such an
anthropopathic expression as "affinity" is still applied to chemical
reaction, or with what _naïveté_ the term "law" is transferred from
the realm of human jurisprudence into the domain of natural processes,
one ceases to wonder at the constant confusions of outer with inner in
which so much of the psychomorphism of the time has had its origin.

It would be strange, then, if, seen in so many of man's efforts to
interpret the inanimate things around him, this process of
self-projection should not also be valid for the larger relations of
his mental activity to the universe. It is but a step, in fact, from
the application of anthropomorphic words to the objects and processes
of Nature, to the employment regarding such processes of
anthropomorphic thought. As the child finds the satisfaction of its
fancy in the discovery of some strange face as suggested to him in the
decorations of the wall paper which surrounds his sick-bed, or in
tracing out from the contours of clothes hung up within range of his
vision the preposterous outline or figure of some human likeness or
caricature, so the savage, with a deeper purpose born of necessity,
traces out from the larger patterns of the moving world about him the
organic shapes, embodying will and personality, that are to serve him
as explanations of the external power which touches his existence for
good or for evil, and which, thus serving him, enable him to come into
relations with that power. It is the deepest interests of human life
which make this process necessary, and it is of the very nature of the
process that the characters thus projected into the environment must
always--throughout the history of human ascent, and at every
particular stage of it--be closely and definitely correlated with the
degree and kind of the self-knowledge which is its source.

The earliest of the animal characters displaying this correlation,
and used as a means of understanding the environment, could not well
have been other than that of motion. That by the higher mammals, at
any rate, moving things, even when inorganic, are generally regarded
as alive, is a view rendered probable by a large body of evidence.[G]
But when man finally appeared on the scene, a new element came in to
complicate the merely animal attitude in which vitality was attributed
to inanimate objects in motion. By contemplating the phenomena of his
subjective life, and observing analogous phenomena in his
fellow-beings--through the consideration of dreams, swoons, even death
itself--our ancestor discovered in himself a character deeper than
that of vitality; came to recognize that the living creature, animal
and human, possesses an inner principle or essence underlying its
activities; is not only "alive," but also "animated." At first the
conception of vitality was one with the conception of bodily activity;
at last man learned to differentiate the movements of the body from an
inner essence to which he believed them to be due--learned, in a word,
to distinguish between the corporeal existence and the soul. And
having effected this first rude division of the characters of soul
from the merely physical attributes of life, our ancestor soon
projected the new view which he had reached of himself into the
objects of his environment. The beneficent influences of Nature, so
necessary to his life, he now invested with the good purposes of the
better nature within him; in the maleficent forces of the cosmos he
read the malignant will of his own angry passions.

But it is not as mere phenomena that these powers, thus finally
ensouled and regarded as personal, can be thought about. In the
beginning the human mind carries on its mental processes largely with
the aid of images--recovered images of something seen, heard, felt, or
tasted--and is yet far off from the stage of scientific thought in
which abstract concepts take the place of the recovered mental
pictures which have been yielded through the senses. Man thus needed
concrete images with which to think about the personal powers of the
external world, and he naturally found them in the animal and human
shapes already familiar to him. Discovering some likeness between a
Nature force and some animal, he henceforth associated the two, and
recalled the image of the animal as the more concrete means of mental
recovery when he wished to think of the abstract Nature power. Or,
associating some departed ancestor, relative, hero, or king with the
Nature force--an association which would be greatly strengthened by
belief in the survival of the soul after death--he gradually
confounded the disembodied human power with the soul of the Nature
power, and through the law of least effort, used the concrete image of
the departed human being to stand in his mental processes for the much
more difficult thought of the Nature force. But, whatever the process,
animal shapes were obviously needed to reduce the Nature powers to
such a degree of concreteness as would make it possible for primitive
man to deal with them as objects of thought. And it is not less
certain that while, for some races, the earliest shapes thus utilized
were those of the lower animals, the final form for all races was that
of man himself.

In the anthropomorphic stage, then, there is the same effort to
understand the external system by assimilating it to something with
which man is already familiar. The worshiped deities may be many or
few, numberless as the Nature forces, polytheistic as among the Greeks
and Romans, or one as in the monotheism of the Semite. Man likens them
to himself, attributes to them not only his outward shape, but also
his failings and virtues, making his Pantheon resemble not only the
social order, but also the political system under which he happens to
live. It is the completeness of this assimilation which made
anthropomorphism the most persistent aspect of man's intellectual
growth the world has known. Yet the view could linger only as the
possession of the intellectually slothful and immature. The
inadequacy, the crudeness, of the conception in which Deity was imaged
as a gigantic man gradually forced itself upon the attention of the
more thoughtful. Increased mental activity, a better acquaintance with
natural processes, brought the idea of a power above Nature rather
than merely superior to man; and as the human mind passed from the
conception of the superhuman to that of the supernatural--as,
moreover, the thought of merely local gods gave way to the idea of
gods not limited in their functions to particular areas--the
anthropomorphic shapes naturally fell away from the powers they could
no longer adequately represent.

Then other changes, strictly correlated with man's advancing knowledge
of himself, ushered in the latest stage of his attitude toward the
external system. For in the same mind which had been compelled to
reject crude anthropomorphism, there had been growing the
consciousness of man as something more than a mere compound of
vitality, consciousness, and will--something more than a set of bodily
and mental capacities essential to the work of self-maintenance--the
thought that man was the sum of his higher, not of his lower
qualities, that henceforth he must be measured by the activities which
he carried on in the domain of pure thought. And this recognition of
mental attributes as the most worthy, the most exalted characters of
human personality, could not fail to impress itself upon the
conception of deity already undergoing deanthropomorphization. More
and more, therefore, in the higher mind of the race, the Divine Being,
not only losing his former bodily form, but yielding even the grosser
attributes of personality with which he has been invested, becomes for
the thought of man a psychical being in the deepest sense of that
term. Anthropomorphism, or man-likening, passes away, and in its place
comes psychomorphism, or mind-likening.

Two aspects are thus recognizable in the mental interpretation of the
environment: on the one hand an aspect which may be called causal,
since it seeks the source of the power exerted by Nature forces and
objects; on the other, an aspect which is obviously formal, its main
significance being that it condenses, so to speak, groups of qualities
into a single mental sign. The causal aspect yields, in howsoever
simple or complex a form, a theory of the cosmos or of its parts; the
formal aspect is no more than a means, ready at hand, in the visible
bodies of animals and men for facilitating the use of that theory in
processes of thought. Hence we may regard vitalism, animism,
psychomorphism as so many stages of man's attitude toward the external
system, corresponding with the degree of his power to apprehend the
more abstract as distinguished from the more particular and
superficial characters of things that come within the range of his
knowledge. In the first, he explicitly recognizes vitality, the most
obvious character of Nature force; in the second, subsuming vitalism,
he raises the soul life to the place of honor; in the third, subsuming
both vitalism and animism, he emphasizes in psychomorphism the highest
human qualities which his mind enables him to recognize.

The passage from the idea of multiplicity to that of unity is itself
an inseparable part of the total process. As at the beginning man
reads vitality into the separate objects and forces of Nature, without
any thought of their underlying unity, so he regards as discrete,
unconnected, objectively unrelated, the multifarious souls with which,
in his thought, these various powers of the environment have come to
be animated. But in course of time, by an inner necessity of
intellectual growth, relations come to be perceived between the forces
of Nature, likenesses are recognized between the functions of spirits
and deities--between the powers put forth and the results achieved.
The result is a process of coalescence which, to describe it in the
briefest way, first merges a large number of spirit-evolved gods into
a smaller number of relatively independent divinities, forms these
into pantheons of gods each subordinated to a superior, and finally
unites all beings regarded as divine in the single, all-comprehending,
omniscient and omnipotent Deity of monotheism.

In all this advance, moreover, we find that the process illustrated
by the changing phases of man's mental attitude toward Nature also
holds good of the multifarious acts by which, in what is known as
religion, man has sought to realize that attitude in conduct. For, in
seeking to adjust himself to the system of Power, man has been forced
to conceive of his Pantheon in terms as well of his social
arrangements as of the political system under which he happened to be
living. The spirit world of a horde of savages could only reflect the
indefiniteness and disunion of the nomads whose imagination it
satisfied. But as the household made its appearance, as a definite
social structure arose, and the straggling tribes began to be united
into nations, the gods themselves took on the characters of an
analogous transformation. The divine selfishness--the "_remota ab
nostris rebus_"--long ago satirized by the poet Lucretius, obviously
correlated with the attitude of man toward man, just as naturally gave
way, with the growth of the social sympathies, to the thought of that
more active concern in human affairs which is one of the salient
characters of the later phases of monotheism. The original
indifference of Deity toward ethical issues--a widespread feature of
the earlier religious conceptions--could not but pass away with the
moral stagnation of the ancient communities out of which it had
arisen. So the comparatively new thought of a God definitely
identified in his aims and activities with the cause of moral reform
is no less obviously a result of the new attitude of man himself
toward problems of social improvement; while the persistence with
which, in human thought, morals remain associated with religion
sufficiently illustrates the extent to which man's view of eac

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