Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898

Natural Selection and Fortuitous Variation. – The three principal objections urged against Darwin's theory of natural selection were stated by Prof. W. F. R. Weldon, in his presidential address to the Section of Zoology and Physiology of the British Association, as being that the species of animals we know fall into orderly series for the selection of which purely fortuitous variations can not be supposed to afford opportunity; that minute structural variations can not be supposed to affect the death-rate so much as the theory requires they should, while many of the characters by which species are distinguished appear to us so small and useless that they can not be supposed to affect the chance of survival at all; and that the process of evolution by natural selection is so extremely slow that the time required for its operation is longer than the extreme limit of time given by estimates of the age of the earth. The first of these objections the speaker alleged to be due to a misunderstanding of words; we regard as fortuitous what we do not understand; and he proceeded to explain how what we call chance may be shown, especially by a method developed by Professor Pearson, to be a real and important factor. To the other two objections Professor Weldon opposed the results of observations of his own and of Mr. Herbert Thompson on the small shore crabs (Carcinus mœnas) at Plymouth Beach. "In these crabs small changes in the size of the frontal breadth do, under certain circumstances, affect the death-rate; and the mean frontal breadth among this race of crabs is, in fact, changing at a rate sufficiently rapid for all the requirements of a theory of evolution." In conclusion, he said: "I hope I have convinced you that the law of chance enables one to express easily and simply the frequency of variations among animals, and I hope I have convinced you that the action of natural selection upon such fortuitous variations can be experimentally measured, at least in the only case in which any one has attempted to measure it. I hope I have convinced you that the process of evolution is sometimes so rapid that it can be observed in the space of a very few years." The whole difficulty of natural selection, he added, is a quantitative difficulty; and he insisted upon the need of observations and measurements of the rates of variation.

The Interior of Canada. – The country between Lake St. John and James Bay is under survey by the Department of Colonization and Mines of Quebec, in furtherance of a scheme for a transcontinental railroad to tap the Hudson Bay country and Lake Winnipeg. As to the commercial advantages of a railway center established at the head of James Bay or at the limit of tide water on the Nottaway River, Mr. O'Sullivan, the surveyor, shows that the shore line of Hudson and James Bay, following the east coast from the mouth of the Nottaway to the southern entrance to Hudson Strait, measures, in a line running due north, eight hundred miles, or about the same distance as the former point is north of the city of Washington; and the western shore line, measured in the same way to Rowe's Welcome, is about sixteen hundred miles, while the area inclosed amounts to more than three hundred and fifty thousand square miles. While Hudson Strait is blocked with ice during nine months of the year, the bay itself is navigable from June till November, and James Bay is generally open early in May. All the large rivers – the Albany, Moose, Hannah, Nottaway, Rupert, Main, and Big Rivers – converge along these shores, and the forest wealth of the thousands of miles drained by these and lesser rivers can be concentrated at the mouth of the Nottaway or Rupert. The land along the line from Lake St. John is good dry land fit for settlement. The Nottaway at the crossing point is fourteen hundred and fifty feet wide, and admits bridge spans of five hundred feet. Thence, a direct line to Norway House, at the foot of Lake Winnipeg, would pass through the gypsum beds on Moose River, and give access to a vast area of rich agricultural land in the north part of the province of Quebec. The straight line continued would strike about the forks of the Peace and Smoky Rivers, near the center of the northwest wheat-growing region, and thence follow the valleys of the Peace and Skeene Rivers to the Pacific Ocean, crossing the Rocky Mountains at a point where the summit is two thousand feet lower than that of the Canadian Pacific Railway. As to the resources of this northwestern country, there are, according to a Dominion official report, an area of six hundred and fifty-six thousand square miles along the Mackenzie River suitable for the growth of potatoes, four hundred and seven thousand suitable for barley, and three hundred and sixteen thousand for wheat, with a pastoral area of eight hundred and sixty thousand square miles, two hundred and seventy-four thousand miles of which may be regarded as arable land. "The difference in latitude makes no corresponding difference in the climate. Flowers bloom as early in the spring and as late in autumn at Great Slave Lake as at Winnipeg or St. Paul and Minneapolis. The prevailing southwest or Chinook winds render the climate along the Peace and Liard Rivers as mild and salubrious as that of western Ontario. Wheat ripens along the Mackenzie River under the Arctic Circle, a thousand miles farther north than Rupert House."

MINOR PARAGRAPHS

Mr. W. H. Huddleston, in his presidential address to the Geological Section of the British Association, spoke of the geology of the southwest of England, and began with supporting the claim of Bristol, where the association was meeting, to be regarded as the cradle of British geology, and even more; for, he said, Devonshire, Cornwall, and West Somerset first attracted the attention of the Ordnance Geological Survey. "Thus it comes to pass that the region which lies between the Bristol Channel and the English Channel claims the respect of geologists in all parts of the world, not only as the birthplace of stratigraphical paleontology, but also as the original home of systematic geological survey. The city of Bristol lies on the confines of this region, where it shades off northwestward into the Palæozoics of Wales and northeastward into the Mesozoics of the midland counties."

A committee of the English Society of Arts, appointed to inquire into the matter, attribute the doubtful quality of modern paper to "revolutionary" changes which the industry has undergone, including the introduction of new substances of varying qualities and chemical properties, in the working up of which there is still room for much improvement. The committee have examined many books, as evidence, on the question of the deterioration of paper. They distinguish two tendencies – to disintegration and to discoloration – which are independent but may be concurrent effects, and are notably concurrent in papers containing mechanical wood pulp. Disintegration, which has been brought to light in papers of all grades, is generally the result of chemical changes in the fibers, produced by acids in the rag papers, and by oxidation in the papers made of mechanical wood pulp. Discoloration of ordinary cellulose papers, as distinguished from papers containing mechanical wood pulp, is dependent upon the quality of the sizing, and particularly the proportion of rosin in it. The committee define as the normal standard of quality for book papers, required for publications of permanent value, fibers not less than seventy per cent of the cotton, flax, and hemp class, sizing not more than two per cent rosin, the paper to be finished with the normal acidity of pure alum, and the loading to be not more than ten per cent mineral matter.

Colonel G. E. Church, president of the Geographical Section of the British Association, pointed out in his opening address, which was on Argentine geography and the ancient Pampean Sea, that the drainage area of the Plata basin was, according to Dr. Bludan, 1,198,000 square miles, or more than two and a half times that of the Pacific slope of the Andes. The minimum water discharge into the Plata estuary would, every twenty-four hours, make a lake one mile square and 1,650 feet deep. About seventy-four per cent of it would represent the flow of the Paraná, and twenty-six per cent that of the Uruguay River. These interlaced with the affluents of the Amazon along a line of fourteen degrees of longitude. The author sought to show that the Plata drainage area was, in a recent geological period, much more extensive than it is to-day; that its extreme northern limit was in 10° 44' south latitude, and that nearly all the waters that now unite to form the Madeira River, the main affluent of the Amazon, once flowed southward into a Pampean sea that penetrated north over the plains of the present Argentine Republic to about 19° south latitude.

Dr. Le Neve Foster, who nearly met his death in 1897 from carbonic-oxide poisoning while investigating a mine accident in the Isle of Man, discussing, in his report on the disaster, the origin of the gas, points out that although it occurs occluded in certain rocks and minerals, it has never been found as a natural constituent of the atmosphere of the mines. He had, therefore, to seek an artificial source, and found it in the burning of the timber in the mine. It appeared that the combustion of a cubic foot of larch, the wood used in the timber construction of the Snaefell mine, gives rise to enough carbonic oxide to occupy four hundred and seventeen feet of space at a temperature of 60° F. and a pressure of thirty inches. Twenty-five cubic feet of timber will yield sufficient to infect the atmosphere with one per cent of the gas all through the mine – enough to cause almost immediate loss of consciousness and speedy death. It is important, therefore, to avoid as much as possible the use of combustible material in the shafts and roadways of mines, unless they are constantly wet or damp. It is also well to have compressed oxygen at hand for the restoration of asphyxiated persons, and also apparatus for penetrating noxious gases.

Rafting, similar to that which formerly distinguished the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and to that which is still employed by the wood dealers on the great rivers of northern Russia and Siberia, is in use among the farmers of the middle and upper courses of the Yang-tse-Kiang as a means of getting their produce to market. They join rafts till they have a surface of two or three acres, care being taken not to have them too large for the river at its narrowest passages, and on these they build veritable farmsteads, with dwelling houses, barns, stables, and pigpens, for horses, cattle, and swine; and provide supplies of hay, fodder, and provisions for beast and man, to last the human and animal population of the craft during their journey of six hundred or nine hundred miles. The men on board are not idle through this journey, but have their stock of osier twigs and spend their time making baskets and other articles. Arrived at one of the great river marts, the people dispose of their animals and products, sell the articles they have made, and find markets for the material of their rafts with the dealers in lumber and firewood – just as the Ohio and Mississippi boatmen used to do. Then they return home.

The New York School of Applied Design for Women, 200 West Twenty-third Street, was organized for the purpose of affording to women instruction which will enable them to earn their livelihood by the employment of their taste and manual dexterity in the application of ornamental design to manufacture and the arts. Besides eight elementary courses, it has a course in historic ornament, advanced courses in the applications of design to the manufacture of wall paper and silk, and of the elementary instruction to the work of an architect's draughtsman, and to illustrating and lithography; and special courses in book-cover designing, advanced design, animal drawing for illustration, stained glass designing, watercolor painting, and interior decoration. The instructors are practical men from manufactories and architects' offices. Pupils are allowed to proceed as rapidly as they master the successive steps in the course of instruction, without having to conform to a fixed period.

Communicating to the American Association the results of experiments in fig-raising in California, Dr. L. O. Howard said that the trees produced from imported Smyrna cuttings dropped most of their fruit, whence it seemed that something was wanting. This was found to be the fertilizing insect, Blastophora psenes, which inhabits the wild fig trees or caprifigs of the Mediterranean countries, and which the fig-growers procure by bringing down twigs of these trees from the mountains at the fertilizing season. Artificial fertilization of figs has been tried in California with considerable success; but it is thought that if the caprifig and its insect can be naturalized in California, there will be no difficulty in raising figs the equal to those of Smyrna.

Discussing at the meeting of the American Association the position of the trilobites in classification, Prof. A. S. Packard referred to the discovery of Beecher that certain genera of them have antennæ together with biramose legs, essentially the same for the head and trunk, and double, so that one portion is available for swimming and the other for crawling. He then showed that this uniformity of appendages does not occur in the Crustaceæ, to which the trilobites have been referred heretofore. For this reason, and because the young have a different form from crustacean young, zoölogists are inclined to refer the trilobites to a separate class and to regard them as an older, more primitive group. From certain obvious affinities, the Limulus, or king crab, may be regarded as a descendant from the trilobites.

On Thursday, September 15th, Mr. Stanley Spencer and Dr. Berson ascended from the Crystal Palace, near London, in a balloon inflated with pure hydrogen to the remarkable height of twenty-seven thousand five hundred feet, only fifteen hundred feet below the highest ascent of Coxwell and Glaisher. Numerous scientific instruments were carried, and also a cylinder of compressed oxygen for inhaling at great heights. It was found necessary to use the oxygen at twenty-five thousand feet.

In the discussion in the British Association of a communication by Professors E. B. Roser and W. O. Atwater recording their experiments (American) on the amount of energy supplied to and obtainable from the human body – which are found to be equal – Prof. W. E. Ayrton, presiding, pointed out that the energy of muscular action is probably capillary or electrical, the human machine being more analogous to an electric battery or motor than to a steam engine.

In the list of officers of the American Association for 1899, published in our last number, the name of L. O. Howard, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, should have appeared as permanent secretary.

The hundredth anniversary of the invention of the voltaic or electric pile is to be celebrated in 1899 at Como, the birthplace of Alexander Volta, by an international electrical exhibition. A national exhibition of the manufacture of silk – machinery, preparation, and processes – will be held in connection with it. An international congress will also be held for the discussion of the progress and applications of electricity.

A prize of five hundred guineas is offered by the Sulphate of Ammonia Committee, 4 Fenchurch Avenue, London, for the best essay on The Utility of Sulphate of Ammonia in Agriculture; the committee to have entire disposal of the selected essay, and the refusal of any of the others for not more than fifty guineas each. The essays – in English – should be in the hands of the committee not later than November 15, 1898.

Recent death lists include the names, among men known to science, of Prof. Park Merrill, chief of the Forecast Division of the Weather Bureau, at Washington, August 8th; Dr. E. V. Aveling, late assistant in physiology at Cambridge and professor of chemistry and physiology at New College, a writer upon scientific topics, in London, August 4th, aged forty-seven years; M. Paul Sevret, mathematician and member of the French Academy of Sciences, in Paris, June 24th, aged seventy years; W. F. R. Surringer, professor of botany in the University of Leyden, and director of the Botanical Garden and Herbarium; J. A. R. Newlands, the discoverer of the periodic law of the chemical elements, in Lower Clapton, London, July 29th, aged sixty-nine years; the astronomer Romberg, who succeeded Encke at Berlin in 1864, and was called to Pulkova in 1873, author of numerous papers in Monthly Notices on double stars and planetary and cometary observations, at Pulkova, July 6th, aged sixty-four years; John Hopkinson, an eminent British electrician, president of the Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1890 and 1896, killed with his three children in an attempt to ascend the Dent de Visivi, Alps, August 24th; Dr. H. Trimble, professor of practical chemistry in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, and editor of the American Journal of Pharmacy; M. de Windt, geologist of the Belgian Exploring Expedition to the Congo, drowned in Lake Tanganyika, Africa, August 9th; Dr. Paul Glan, assistant professor of physics in the University of Berlin, aged fifty-eight years; Dr. E. J. Bonsdorf, formerly professor of anatomy and physiology at Helsingfors, Finland, aged eighty-eight years; Dr. Robert Zimmerman, formerly professor of philosophy in the University of Vienna, at Salzburg, Austria, aged seventy-seven years; M. J. M. Moniz, known by his investigations of the natural history of Madeira, at Madeira, July 11th, aged sixty-six years; and M. Pomel, a distinguished French mining engineer, professor of geology and past director at the Algiers Scientific School, and author of a number of special works, at Oran, Algeria.

notes

1

Mr. Charles Walcott Brooks presented to the California Academy of Sciences a report of Japanese vessels wrecked on the North Pacific Ocean in which many instances are given. He says: "Every junk found stranded on the coast of North America or on the Hawaiian or adjacent islands has, on examination, proved to be Japanese, and no single instance of a Chinese vessel has ever been reported, nor is any believed to have existed… There also exists an ocean stream of cold water emerging from the Arctic Ocean which sets close in along the eastern coast of Asia. This fully accounts for the absence of Chinese junks on the Pacific, as vessels disabled off their coast would naturally drift southward."

2

On the Older Forms of Terra-Cotta Roofing Tiles. Essex Institute Bulletin, 1882.

3

Since the above was written Dr. Brinton and Mr. Saville have called my attention to such evidences as would warrant the belief in the existence of a pre-Columbian stringed musical instrument. The devices are, however, of such a nature as to indicate their independent origin.

4

Nineteenth Century, p. 316.

5

Aristocracy and Evolution, pp. 52, 53. The italics are his.

6

Literature, April 2, 1898.

7

Westminster Review, April, 1857.

8

Aristocracy and Evolution, pp. 5, 7.

9

Ibid., pp. 10, 11.

10

Nineteenth Century, pp. 314, 315.

11

Justice, pp. 110, 111.

12

An address before the Society of Horticulture and Viticulture at Clermont-Ferrand.

13

The Historical Development of Modern Europe from the Congress of Vienna to the Present Time. By Charles M. Andrews. Vol. II, 1850-1897. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 467. Price, $2.50.

14

Fossil Plants. For Students of Botany and Geology. By A. C. Seward. With Illustrations. Cambridge, England: The University Press. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 452. Pries, $3.

15

Practical Plant Physiology. An Introduction to Original Research for Students and Teachers of Natural Science, Medicine, Agriculture, and Forestry. By Dr. W. Detmer. Translated from the second German edition by S. A. Moor. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 555. Price, $3.

16

The Sphere of Science. By Frank Sargent Hoffman, Ph. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 268. Price, $1.50.