REV. DR. SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH, AUTHOR OF "AMERICA."

in the famous class of '29, which comprised such men as Oliver Wendel1 Holmes, Judge B. R. Curtis,

sung to-day. I did not know at the time that the tune was the British 'God Save the King.' I do not share the regrets of those who deem it an evil that the national tune of Britain and America is the same. On the contrary, I deem it a new and beautiful tie of union between the mother and the daughter, one furnishing the music (if, indeed, it is really English), and the other the words. "I did not propose to write a national hymn. I did not think that I had done so. I laid the song aside, and nearly forgot that I had made it. Some weeks later I sent it to Mr. Mason, and on the following Fourth of July, much to my surprise, he brought it out at a children's celebration in the Park Street Church, in Boston, where it was first sung in public."

States Supreme Court; the late Chief-Justice Bigelow of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the Rev. James Freeman Clark. From Cambridge he went to the Andover Theological Seminary, and it was while there he wrote the words of the hymn 'America,' which has made him so famous throughout the world. In 1834 he became pastor of the village church in Waterville, Me., and at the same time professor of modern languages in Colby University. Eight years later he moved to Newton Center, Mass., where he had since lived. He was for seven years editor of The Christian Review, and until July, 1854, he was pastor of the Baptist church at Newton Centre; then for fifteen years was connected with the foreign missionary work of that church, serving in the secretary's department. He was a most accomplished scholar, having read and studied books in fifteen different languages, and had written many books and other hymns besides America,' including 'The Morning Light is Breaking. Dr. Smith had traveled extensively abroad and in his native country. In September, 1894, he celebrated the sixtyfirst anniversary of his marriage, and on April 3, 1895, was the recipient of a grand public testimonial in Music Hall in recognition of his authorship of 'America.'

1

"In the year 1831 William C. Woodbridge, of New York, a noted educator, was deputed to visit Germany and inspect the system of the public schools, that if he should find in them any features of interest unknown to our public schools here they might be adopted in the schools of the United States. He found that in the German schools much attention was given to music; he also found many books containing music and songs for children. Returning home, he brought several of these music-books, and placed them in the hands of Mr. Lowell Mason, then a noted composer, organist, and choir leader. Having himself no knowledge of the German language, he brought them to me at Andover, when I was then studying theology, requesting me, as I should find time, to furnish him translations of the German words, or to write new hymns and songs adapted to the German music.

"On a dismal day in February, 1832, looking over one of these books, my attention was drawn to a tune which attracted me by its simple and natural movement and its fitness for children's choirs. Glancing at the German words at the foot of the page, I saw that they were patriotic, and I was instantly inspired to write a patriotic hymn of my own.

"Seizing a scrap of waste paper, I began to write, and in half an hour I think the words stood upon it substantially as they are

by women, because of his alleged treatment of his wife. On this score Mr. I. Zangwill comes to his defense, in The ChapBook, saying that it was rather the wife who was to blame, on account of her too little capacity for passion. And, says Zangwill, whatever she had to suffer from Carlyle's careless tyranny and gloomy humors, still it ought to have been a satisfaction to a woman of such brilliant parts to live in daily contact with such an intellect. Zangwill suggests that she seems to have found Carlyle's company stimulating enough before marriage. Could she not, he queries, have taken more interest in the books he was writing, so that, instead of silently perpending, he should talk his points over with her? We quote the following from Mr. Zangwill's remarks:

"The selfishness of Carlyle was not wilful, even tho it be inexcusable. It was blindness; his soul was rapt away from the real world around him, and lived amid great men and picturesque mobs. And it must not be forgotten that the artist, inasmuch as he lives a double life, comes under two sets of standards, and it is something if he satisfies one. Egoistic as Carlyle may have been as a man and as a husband, as an artist he was impeccable. He yielded neither to the temptation of gold nor of shoddy work. His energy was herculean, his labor supremely conscientious; his perseverance equaled his genius. Verily he could 'toil terribly, this man who could rewrite The French Revolution' after the first manuscript had been destroyed. That men of letters and painters and musicians are not immaculate the world knows well enough; but ere it points the Pharisaic finger of scorn, let it remember to make the distinction between the conscienceless in both life and art, and those whose artistic conscience is at least clear. And let it remember that the artistic part of him is to the artist his own inmost reality, and that, as was the case with Carlyle, he may in the service of his art be even unconscious of his lapses from common morality. The prophet was a weak and sinful creature-perhaps. But did he prophesy from the heart of him, or was he a charlatan posing for money in the market-place? That is the question to be considered in the matter of great men. Owing to the double nature of the artist, four logical possibilities arise. He may be a good man and a dishonest artist, or a bad man and an honest artist, or a bad man and a dishonest artist, or a good man and an honest artist. While there can be no question as to the supreme greatness of the fourth variety or as to the turpitude of the third, casuists might wrangle eternally over the alternative of the first two. Should a painter turn out pot-boilers to support his family, or should he neglect his domestic duties to follow his artistic ideals? Is a highly respectable musician, who makes large royalties on his ballads, better than his neighbor who combines the unrewarded creation of the music of the future with general impropriety? In fine, whatever you may feel about Carlyle's character pray bear in mind the terrible amount of morality that went to make those wonderful books, and which is stored up in them like force in nitroglycerin; and if you are an ordinary humdrum person, who contributes nothing to the world's treasury, it will become you better to say grace than to pronounce judgment. And, whatever you may think of the rights and wrongs of the Carlyle household, remember the shrewd think that Tennyson said about it--the shrewdest thing any one has said about it-that it was a blessing they had married each other, for otherwise there would have been four unhappy people instead of two."

SCIENCE.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ANIMAL AND A

A

PLANT.

CHARACTERISTIC of modern research is that it is break. ing down all the old hard and fast lines of classification and either drawing them in new places or creating a doubt regarding their true place, or even whether lines of demarcation properly exist at all. So, in physics, the old distinctions between solids and liquids, or liquids and gases, have almost ceased to exist, and in biology the natural division of living organisms into animal and vegetable has become doubtful, since many of the lower organisms seem to defy all efforts to range them on one side or the other of the line. In a recent article in The American Naturalist (November) J. C. Arthur makes a fresh attempt at fixing the boundary. Leaving opinions on his success to be expressed by his brother biologists, we quote below enough of his article to give an idea of the characteristics on which he would base the distinction between a plant and an animal:

"The animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom were not sharply distinguished in the days when science was young, some two or three centuries ago, when even learned men believed in the Scythian lamb, that grew on the top of a small tree-trunk in place of foliage, and in the wonderful tree of the British Isles, whose fruit turned to birds when it fell on the ground, and to fishes when it fell into water; and the two kingdoms are not sharply distinguished to-day, when learned men do not agree upon the systematic position of the Myxogastres and other low forms, some going so far as to assert that many of the simple organisms are on neutral ground, belonging no more to one than to the other kingdom. Dr. Asa Gray once said that no absolute distinction whatever is now known between them. It is quite possible that the same organism may be both vegetable and animal, or may be first the one and then the other.'

"So numerous have been the vain attempts to find some character of universal diagnostic value that it seems rash indeed to make another trial. But, in case of failure, no harm will be done, even if no advance has been made.

"In all attempts, so far as they have come to my notice, the characters selected to distinguish the two kingdoms have been physiological, and not structural. Yet, in the classification of plants among themselves, or of animals among themselves, the characters of acknowledged value are drawn from structure, and physiological distinctions are only considered when the organisms are very minute or simple, like the bacteria and yeasts, or for some other exceptional reason. It seems, therefore, highly illogical to accept a purely physiological character as fundamental for separating the two kingdoms.

"On this ground we would discard Linnæus's clasification: Lapides crescunt, vegetabilia crescunt et vivunt, animalia crescunt, vivunt et sentient, and that of Hackel, who accords the chlorophyll function to plants and not to animals; and that of Sedgwick and Wilson, who find the sole characteristic of animals to be dependence upon proteid food; and also that of Dangeard and Minot, who distinguish the two kingdoms by the manner in which the food, or food material, is taken into the organism. There are also characters, for which I need cite no authority, that were advocated at different times in the past, which have since been discarded for lack of universality, such as a carbon dioxid respiration in plants and an oxygen respiration in animals, that plants exclusively convert inorganic matter into organic matter, that plants alone produce chlorophyll, or cellulose, or starch, etc. "In attempting to distinguish animals and plants by means of definite characters, there is another point that needs attention. Primary characters are to be drawn from the mature condition of the organism, and not from the reproductive or the immature state. This is such an obvious proposition in the ordinary classification of animals or plants, that it seems strange that in diagnosing the two kingdoms it should have been entirely overlooked. There are remarkable similarities in methods of reproduction among plants and animals, not only in the processes, but in the *Minerals grow (by accretion or crystallization), vegetables grow and live, animals grow, live and feel.

external means for protection and in the methods of dissemination of the reproductive bodies. Especially is this true of nonsexual reproduction among the lower orders. The reproductive structures are sometimes very elaborate, and the organism in that state often attracts more attention than in the vegetative condition, as in the case of the Myxogastres. It is obvious that the individual is the object that we are studying and classifying. and therefore the most fundamental of characters should apply to the individual-the vegetative organism, and not to the mode by which a succession of individuals is maintained.

"The following definition of plants and animals is suggested as meeting the requirements of the conditions of classification mentioned above:

"PLANTS are organisms possessing (in their vegetative state) a cellulose investment.

"ANIMALS are organisms possessing (in their vegetative state) a proteid investment, either potential or actual.”

Mr. Arthur now proceeds to explain and develop these definitions, and he claims to establish his point that, judged by it, every known organism may be classed either as an animal or as a plant. He notes that both plants and animals may take on hard outer coverings; thus some microscopic organisms of both kinds seem to have coverings of silica; yet the original and fundamental substance was cellulose in the one case and proteid in the other. Organisms consisting apparently of naked protoplasm he classes as animals on the ground that they certainly have no cellulose envelope and may possibly have one of proteid. It is evident, however, that even with this new set of definitions there must still be some doubt about the position of a few of these very low forms of life.

THE

THE MECHANISM OF STORMS.

HE new Chief of the United States Weather Bureau, Mr. Willis L. Moore, has the reputation of being peculiarly bold and skilful in his methods, and he has tried so earnestly not to allow himself to be tied down by old ideas and prejudices that he has incurred some hostile criticism. Mr. Moore was given an opportunity to speak for himself before the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its last meeting, and some of the most interesting parts of his address are here quoted from the official report in Science (November 1).

After quoting the law of 1890, which prescribes the Chief's duties, he goes on as follows:

"To those who have read every important treatise on meteorology, and who have studied every text-book on the subject, it is painfully patent that we are extremely ignorant of the mechanism of storms; of the operations of those vast and subtle forces in free air which give inception to the storm and which supply the energy necessary to accelerate cyclonic action when formed, or to disperse the same when once fully in operation. We know that great atmospheric swirls in the shape of high- and low-pressure areas alternately drift across the country at intervals of two or three days; that the atmosphere flows spirally into the cyclonic or low-pressure system and outward from the anti-cyclonic or high-pressure system, that the in-drawn east and south winds on the front of the storm are warm, and that the inwardly flowing north and west winds are cold.

"The theories of Redfield, Espy, Loomis, Ferrel, and others, teach that our great storms are composed of immense masses of air gyrating about a vertical or nearly vertical axis, drifting eastward and at the same time drawing in warm easterly currents at the front and cold westerly currents at the rear: that the commingling of these two as they rise to greater and greater elevations, near the regions of the cyclonic center, throws down volumes of rain or snow; that as precipitation occurs with the ascending currents, the heat of condensation energizes the cyclonic circulation; that the air at the center of the storm is relatively warm, is rarefied by centrifugal force, and, by reason of less density, rises to a great elevation, and in the upper regions of the atmosphere flows away laterally to assist in building up high-pressure areas on either side.

"The high- and low-pressure areas are supposed to be carried

eastward by the general easterly drift of the atmosphere in the middle latitudes, somewhat as eddies are carried along by water in a running stream.

"But, unfortunately for the complete accuracy of these theories, the forecaster often finds heavy downpours of rain without any cyclonic circulation, and no convectional system in operation; again over immense areas of country, especially in the Rocky Mountain region, for many months in the year condensation occurs not at all in the warmer easterly currents flowing into the storm center, but almost exclusively in the westerly portion of the storm area, where the cold north and west winds are flowing in." Professor Moore then outlined a few methods of investigation that may increase our knowledge of these matters, such as the study of the influence of the solar magnetic field on our weather, now being prosecuted by Professor Bigelow, and the exploration of the upper air by kites and balloons.

THE ROLE OF SEX IN EVOLUTION.

MEN

EN of average size are much more numerous than either tall men or short men. A similar statement would apply to all living creatures. But it would not apply to stones or other non-living objects. Of these the smaller are far the more numerous. Why is this so? J. Berry Haycraft, in Natural Science (November), tells us that it is because the living creatures can interbreed, while the stones can not; it is, in fact, due to the influence of sex. We quote below parts of his argument, and reproduce the diagrams by which he explains it:

"The greater number of men are of average height, many are just above or just below it, and fewer and fewer are found at heights further and further removed

へ

FIG. 1.

B

from the average. Not only is this

true as regards height, but it is also true of every measureable quality,

whether of body or mind, that man possesses. This fact can be represented in the form of a diagram (Fig. 1). Along the horizontal line from a to b mark off equal divisions corresponding to the inches between the shortest man, a, and the tallest man, b. Let the vertical heights correspond with the number of individuals whose heights are found to be the same. At a, which we may suppose is five feet, there will, perhaps, be but a single man, and the curve will be very low in height at that spot. At the next division, corresponding to 5 feet 1 inch, there will, perhaps, be two men, and the curve will rise. When we have finished constructing the curve, it will be observed that its highest point is in the middle, and that its slopes are quite symmetrical. According to Quetelet, the above statement applies to the measurable qualities of every living species, whether of plants or animals. But, as we shall see, it does not apply to groups of inorganic objects.

"So far as I can make out, lakes, mountains, rivers, stones on a beach, crystals growing in a mother liquid, and a hundred other groups of objects, present quite a different curve from Fig. 1. To illustrate

this by an example, I give the weights of

327 stones taken haphazard by a spade

from the beach. The smaller stones are

B

--Weights of stones from a beach.

by far the most numerous, and the high- A est part of the curve is, therefore, situated FIG. 2.--] at its commencement (Fig. 2). Thus it appears that the symmetrical curve showing a convergence toward a mean is characteristic rather of groups of living than of non-living bodies.

"While Quetelet thought that we might represent by a simple symmetrical curve the qualities of a group of individuals called by us a 'species.' Galton insists that free interbreeding between members of that group is a necessary condition, without which the curve will not preserve the same proportions. Now, free interbreeding does not occur between different races, and as Galton remarks, 'it clearly would not be proper to combine the heights of men belonging to two dissimilar races in the expectation that the compound result would be governed by the same constants.' Venn illustrates this by an attempt to mix the heights of the taller

English with those of the shorter French race. He says: 'If we mix up the French and English heights, what will follow? Beginning from the English mean of 5 feet 9 inches the heights will at first almost entirely follow the law determined by the English conditions, for at this point the English data are very numerous, and the French by comparison very few. But as we begin to approach the French mean the numbers will cease to show the continual diminution which they should according to the English scale of arrangement, for here the French data are in turn very numerous, and the English by comparison few.' The result of such a combina. tion of heterogeneous elements is illustrated by Fig. 3 (of course in an exaggerated form).

F

E

FIG. 3.-French and English.

"More striking still would be the compound curve which would result were the heights of the Bushmen and the Patagonians mixed together, or even a more extreme example still, the heights of pugs and St. Bernard dogs. Here we are dealing with two races or breeds of the same species. with two groups of individuals which at one FIG. 4.-Pugs and St. Barnards. time interbred, but which are now separated from each other, and as a result of selection have become vastly different. In these cases the two curves are not superimposed at all, but lie far apart, for the largest pug is smaller than the smallest St. Bernard (Fig. 4).

A

"The simplicity and symmetry of the curve of any measurable quality taken from a group of individuals will, therefore, be a test of interbreeding.

"We find, then, that as an actual fact sexual union between members of a group of individuals leads to a convergence toward a mean or average type, and that under constant surrounding conditions this type is preserved.

"The convergence to the mean is, then, a result of sexual reproduction; it may be termed the Rôle of Sex, and one, indeed, of no second order. The tendency constantly to vary is a property inherent in protoplasm, yet often for long periods of time the environment may be the same. In order that a species may continue to live in such a constant environment, the effects of variation must be checked. Sexual multiplication, a conservative function, antagonizes the progressive tendency of variation."

Tailless Cats.-"The Isle of Man," says the Revue Scientifique, October 26, "possesses, as is well known, a curious breed of cats, characterized by the absence of the caudal appendage. Whence comes this freak? No one has yet given a satisfactory explanation of this fact. A correspondent of The Zoologist com. municates to that journal an interesting observation relative to this species. A female Manx cat recently had six successive litters of kittens by an ordinary male cat with a normal tail. In each litter there were three kittens with tails of differing lengths, as shown in the following table:

ARE GRIEF AND FEAR PHYSICAL MALADIES?

WE

E are all familiar with the physical element that enters into strong emotion-the "light-heartedness" of joy, the overwhelming prostration of sudden grief, but they are usually considered as consequences or at any rate as only accompaniments of the mental phenomena. This is putting the cart before the horse, we are told by the German psychologist Lange. According to him, what we call the mental state of joy or grief is but the consequence of the physical state, which depends largely on the condition of the vasomotor system; that is, that part of the nervous system that regulates the circulation, and dilates or contracts the great blood-vessels. Thus grief and fear are primarily physical, and are akin to attacks of bodily disease. The portions of a review of Lange's work on "The Emotions" from the Revue Scientifique (November 2), which we give below in translation, are sufficient to indicate the views held by the German psychologist and his mode of sustaining them:

"What is emotion, considered physiologically? What is joy, grief, fear? Such is the question that Lange has attempted to answer with greater precision than has been attained up to this time; that is to say, by going down as far as possible toward the foundations of the physiologic phenomena that accompany and betray emotion.

“Let us take an example to show the author's method, and let us analyze the physical signs that express joy: in the muscles of relation, innervation is increased; the joyful man feels light, he gesticulates; children leap and clap their hands; the face assumes a rounded form; the larynx works automatically; there are songs, shouts, and cries. In the visceral muscles there is nothing unusual, but the vasomotor innervation is lessened: the arteries dilate; the skin, which receives more blood, reddens and becomes warm; the secretions, particularly that of saliva; visibly augment, and tears often spring to the eyes. The circulation, being more rapid, facilitates the nutrition of the tissues; all the functions are accomplished with greater ease, the body is more robust and healthy, the mind more active: we say justly that joy 'makes us feel young again.'

"Proceeding in this manner for the other emotions Lange constructs the following scheme:

"Diminution of Voluntary Innervation,

The above, plus Vascular Constriction,
Both the above plus Spasm of the Or-
ganic Muscles.

The first, plus Incoordination,
Increase of Voluntary Innervation plus

Spasm of the Organic Muscles,

Plus Vascular Dilatation,

Disappointment. Sadness.

Fear

Embarrassment.

Impatience. Joy.

cidity of the muscles; give back the blood to the skin and the brain, and the lightness to the limbs, and what will remain of the sadness? Absolutely nothing but the memory of the cause that produced it.

"There is, then, in every emotion an initial fact that may be an idea, an image, a perception, or even a sensation: these mental states react differently on the vasomotor centers, but the emotion is always only the consciousness of the organic changes that the excitation of the nervous centers brings to pass in the body." The author then remarks that this modern theory was held in substance by Malebranche, the French philosopher, altho in his time nothing at all was known regarding the constriction or dilatation of the blood-vessels. He speaks of "the emotions that the mind naturally feels on the occasion of extraordinary movements of the animal spirits and the blood." In conclusion the reviewer quotes some interesting conclusions of Lange as follows:

"The excitability of the vasomotor system, like that of the other parts of the nervous system, are very different with different individuals; with many it enters easily into action and reacts with force under relatively insignificant impressions. Daily experience shows us how certain men, compared with others, are subject to palpitation of the heart, blush or grow pale, are sensitive to heat or cold; and we all know that these individuals, so easily excited, are also particularly subject to violence, to anger, to exaggerated joy. It is not only individual differences, chiefly hereditary, that bear on this point; more general circumstances play a rôle of greater importance here. Women, whose nervous system, particularly the vasomotor system, appears in so many ways more excitable than that of men, are a more easy prey to the emotions than men, and it is the same with the child as compared with the adult.

'As we know, the great differences in our emotional natures go to make up the peculiar characteristics of races, and as we car not know much of the difference of vasomotor excitability among different races of men, we ought perhaps to reverse our train of thought and argue from the greater or less emotivity to the corOne fact merits responding excitability of the vascular nerves. particular attention from the prospects that it opens for the future -it is that individuals, like peoples in general, are the less acWe find the cessible to emotion as they are more civilized. same difference between the different social classes of the same generation; it is at this point that we have the most certain sign of education, namely, perfect self-possession, impassibility in the face of events that cause explosions of unbridled passion in untrained persons. This result . . is not only proportional to the development of the intellectual life, but it is in great part the consequence of that development."-Translated for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

Efficiency of Steam and Electricity Compared.-"In popular writings," said Prof. W. C. Unwin in a recent lecture on "The Heat-Engine," before the Institution of Civil Engineers in London, "nothing is commoner than to find the efficiency of electricmachinery and of steam-machinery contrasted to the great discredit of the latter. The dynamo, it is said, has an efficiency of 90 per cent. to 95 per cent., the steam-engine an efficiency of only 10 per cent. What a barbarous machine, after all the labor of a century, the steam-engine must be! The comparison is generally made by an electrical engineer, and the first reflection which occurs to one is that of all people the electrical engineer should be the last to abuse the steam engine, for whatever may be the case in some future century, at present the dynamo is absolutely dependent on the steam engine. Without the steam-engine the dynamo would be a useless mass of metal and wire.

But pass

ing over the moral aspect of the question-the ingratitude of the electrical engineer-the comparison is an unfair one, and shows a want of apprehension of the important law of the motivity of heat, which is one of the two fundamental laws of thermoIt lies dynamics. Heat energy is undirected, or mob energy.

in the nature of the terrestrial conditions in which use has to be made of it that only a fraction is converted into directed or me. chanical energy. The task of the steam engine is to do its best with the fraction which is convertible, and in that point of view it is not an inefficient machine. The dynamo has a much easier task. Energy is supplied to it in its directed or wholly converti ble form, and naturally in transforming one kind of directed energy into another kind of directed energy only a small fraction

need be wasted."

ELECTRICITY AND VITAL PROCESSES.

IN days when less was known of both nerve-force and electric

ity than we know to-day, it was frequently suggested that the two were one and the same. False tho this is now known to be, it is certain that the exact relationship between the two remains to be shown. Now and then an interesting experiment tells us a little more than we knew before, and recently our new items of information have seemed to multiply a little faster than. usual. Several such are gathered in a brief editorial summary published in The Hospital (November 9), extracts from which we make below:

"The relation between electricity and those hidden processes of cell-activity whose outward manifestations we recognize as the signs of life has always been a matter of the greatest interest. Unfortunately, its investigation has also been a matter of the greatest difficulty. The cells of which a large animal is built up are so connected with each other, so interrelated, and so buried in the mass, that the effect of exposing them to a current of electricity can only be judged of by very remote effects. Even the very fact of the influence of galvanism on vital processes, except at the points of entry and exit, has been doubted. Experiments which have been made, however, upon freely floating organisms are very suggestive, showing that the passage of even a steady current through them and the water in which they float-burying them, in fact, within a current produces some change which is so far appreciated that they are driven to accommodate themselves to it. According to Dr. Augustus Waller, if a galvanic current be passed through a bath containing paramecia in sufficient abundance a curious sight is observed. When contact is made the whole crowd of paramecia fall into order with their noses toward the cathode, and begin to swim toward it in converging curves, while if the current be reversed the crowd breaks up. all its units turn round and begin to swim away, as if of one mind, from the new anode to the new cathode; clearly these creatures are more 'comfortable,' if one may use the term, when swimming with the electric current than the reverse way. This, however, is not a general law for all micro-organisms, for some tend to swim against the current, and others again to place themselves at right angles to it.

"In regard to more complex free-floating organisms the same is found to be true.

Much as cats are more comfortable when stroked the right way than the wrong, and in fact will often get up and move away when stroked from tail to head, so it would seem that tadpoles dislike being stroked' the wrong way by electricity. An experiment is described by Dr. Waller. In a lantern bath were a number of fresh tadpoles, moving more or less leisurely and jolting each other in all directions. On sending through it a current of electricity, he says 'the commotion is amazing, the tadpole community seems to have gone mad, a writhing mass is all that can be distinguished; but the disturbance does not take long to subside, and now all the tadpoles are fixed as if at attention, heads to anode, viz., traversed by a current from head to tail, stroked down the right way.

Of course this is not a simple effect of the current on the individual cells, as it seems to be in the micro-organisms, but depends on the spinal cord; in fact, we are told that a piece of tail behaves in this way just the same as a whole tadpole. If the current is not strong enough to turn the tadpoles around, it makes those lying in one way wag their tails, while the others keep perfectly still. The article concludes thus:

"These experiments are then sufficient to suggest that to be bathed in a galvanic current may be by no means so immaterial to the proper functionization of the body as some people have imagined. If freely moving organisms are so affected as to swing round in response to the current, it is hard to believe that those embedded cells which can not swing are any the less affected, and it is open to us to believe that they will perform their functions all the less perfectly from their inability to conform to their new surroundings. In relation to this it is not without interest to bear in mind the assertions continually made by many people as to the distressing effect upon them of what is termed thundery weather, when the relation between the atmospheric and the earth potential is reversed, and when, therefore, the direction of the current discharging through our bodies is abnormal."

A Gleam of Hope for the Cancer-Stricken.-Under this heading The Hospital prints the following note: "The conviction is gaining ground that cancer is a parasitic, that is, a microbial, disease, like tuberculosis. If this should prove to be so, the cure of several large classes of cancer cases is within sight. The results of operations during the past fifteen years certainly point in this direction. Speaking at the British Medical Association's annual congress, in July last, Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson made the assertion that cancer statistics would have to be rewritten, so large had been the proportion of cures during the last decade or two. But there are certain qualifications in this otherwise satisfactory progress. The most important of these are that the cancers which have been 'cured' on so considerable a scale have been

on or near the external surface of the body; and they have been diagnosed and operated upon at very early stages of their growth. Cancers of internal organs, which are seldom diagnosed very early, and which can not be reached by the surgeon's knife, still present the same hopeless features as before. On the point of early diagnosis and operation, Dr. Roux, of Lausanne, has collected some important statistics. According to these, certain classes of cancer which offer reasonable hopes of cure if operated upon early, are lost in as many as 62 per cent. of cases for the simple reason that they are brought to the operator a few months too late. In another class, still more favorable, 12 per cent. seek operation when all hope is past, and as many as 50 per cent. present themselves when it is too late to do anything but palliative operations. The moral for all persons is that in every case where the least suspicion of the presence of a new growth is entertained, medical advice should be sought without the loss of an hour; and the urgent warning to family practitioners is that so soon as they are convinced of the presence of a new growth they should take the operating surgeon into their councils without the delay of a day."

Is the Human Will a Chemical Agent ?-Professor Ostwald, the eminent German chemist, contributes to the Leipziger Berichte a curious speculation which he calls a "chemical theory of the freedom of the will." He regards it as impossible that all natural phenomena should be purely mechanical, as materialists would consider them, for mechanical processes are reversiblethey will work backward as well as forward—while natural processes will not. He regards the action of the human will as being precisely like the chemical process known as catalysis, in which an agent influences the time of a reaction without being itself affected. It is exactly thus that the human mind acts on matter, accelerating the chemical and mechanical processes associated with psychical activity without any expenditure of energy.

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

ELECTRICAL EQUIVALENT OF AN AVALANCHE.-"When one is told that, according to the calculations of Dr. Preller, the total expenditure of energy in the avalanche which occurred September: II near the famous Gemmi Pass, in the Alps, was 4,400,000,000 meter-tons, it gives one but a vague and indefinite idea," says The Electrical World. "In such huge figures a few ciphers, more or less, have little influence on the mind, but by reducing to everyday quantities, such as we have to deal with, and pay for in our meters, a better idea of the significance of the statement may be obtained. The above amount of energy, which was expended in one minute, is equivalent to an activity of 1,000,000 horse-power, and sufficient at the rate of ten 15 candle-power lamps per horse-power to run about 90,000 lamps five hours per day for one whole year.

A VALUABLE ally of the field-geologist is to be found in the land-crab, as reported in Natural Science. Some time ago Mr. Stirling, Assistant Geological Surveyor of the colony of Victoria, Australia, suggested that the work performed by this diminutive excavator in bringing up pieces of the rock forming the subsoil might help the miner to find coal-seams, just as the burrowing wombat had disclosed staniferous lode-stuff in the Australian Alps. "The hint was taken. A young miner detected small pieces of coal around the burrow of a crab, sank a shaft on the spot, and cut the coalseam four feet below the surface. From similar evidence the officers of the geological survey have traced outcrops in places where the rock was masked by alluvium."

IT has been discovered, according to The Electrical Age, that the addition to copper of pure lead, preferably from 0.5 to 1.5 per cent., detracts but very little from the conductivity of the metal, while greatly improving its fluidity in casting. This addition of lead has long been known to have this effect on gun-metal and brass. It has also been known that the addition of lead to molten cast-iron has a similar effect and produces cleaner castings. IT is stated by Mr. R. M. Bache, in The Psychological Review, that negro children are quicker in their motions than the offspring of white persons, and he suggests that the higher mental qualities of civilized white races may have been gained at the sacrifice of quickness of response to outside stimuli.