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272 was to classify the results established, to study their connections, with no care for the demonstrations, sure of finding others, if you happened to forget the ones which they had employed; at the time of your entrance examination, did you not find a new solution for a problem which had been set you? When you worked, you did not remain in your room, but gave your brain a promenade through the corridors, and in place of a pen, a pencil or a piece of chalk, your hand was busy with a bunch of keys—your opener of ideas.

Your superiority in mathematics was so decided that, in spite of your inaptitude for anything practical—manipulations, linear design, imitative design—you were, at the closing examination, placed second, and admitted to the School of Mines. There you found life pleasant for more than one reason. In the first place, in the Latin Quarter, you lodged with one of your cousins, who was taking a literary and law course. . . . With him, in the practise of peripatetism—which was, perhaps, less a philosophical school than a physical peculiarity of philosophers and mathematicians—you followed those studious rounds in the course of which you discussed philosophic themes, already indissolubly associated in your mind, as in those of the ancients, with mathematical theories.

In 1880, the Academy of Sciences had set as the subject of the mathematical great prize, the theory of differential equations. When the illustrious M. Hermite presented his report, he mentioned a discussion bearing the motto: Non inultus premor, whose anonymous author he invited to persevere in a work which promised to produce results. The motto was that of Nancy; you were the author; but your paper was only a first sketch; you presented at that time only the results which you were soon to obtain and which, in the month of February, 1881, burst forth—it is the only exact phrase, says one of your admirers—in the report of the Academy of Sciences. From week to week, with the notes which you sent out regularly, your discovery increased in precision and amplitude for a period of nearly two years. Your contribution was the "the crowning of the work of Cauchy and Riemann, the representation of the coordinates of any algebraic curve in uniform functions, the integration of linear differential equations with algebraic coefficients—it was a new and immense perspective opened to view."

This discovery was a great victory for French science. For some years the German geometers had been roving about the house without finding the door. You located it and opened it.

From there I need not follow you in your career: Professor in the University of Paris and the École Polytechnique, your lessons have had an unequaled vogue; and if, among your auditors, many were not able to follow you, all agreed in proclaiming your astonishing superiority; at thirty-two years you were elected a member of the Academy of


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Rh Sciences, you have been called into the majority of the scientific societies of two hemispheres; you have received all the honors that a legitimate ambition could crave. Your name, going out beyond the narrow circle where your work can be appreciated, has become illustrious and added to a nation's glory, and this fame you owe only to yourself; it is the gift of no one, you have followed no master, you belong to no school, you are yourself—and that is enough.

Similarly, when you undertake a criticism of science, you make it a personal matter, and without adopting any tradition, without bowing to any formula, you walk on in your independence and because you choose to. You run indeed, and so fast, with such bounds, that in order to follow you it is necessary to leap ditches and fill in gaps; but you are built so. Original in mathematics, you remain so in this branch of philosophy; you apply to it, at the same time, a highly-developed interest in psychology, a rare aptitude for observing physiological phenomena in your own person, and that mathematical habit which organizes precision and with refined subtlety binds arguments together with chains that seem impossible to break. Restrained by nothing which you place confidence in or accept a priori, you build up your doubt against official science and sound its nothingness. So your work is double: in mathematics you erect to scientific truth a temple accessible only to the few initiates; and with your philosophic artillery you hurl into the air the chapels about which throng the crowds of rationalists and freethinkers who by a common school certificate have acquired the right to believe in nothing which is not proved to them, to celebrate the mysteries of a pretended religion of science. Ah, sir, what havoc you are making in these demonstrations! Nothing would survive the rudeness of the blows you are dealing if you did not stop from time to time to banter your victims, or if^ seized with a sort of remorse, you did not amuse yourself by gluing together again the members you have broken. The axioms which seemed established by the wisdom of the ages are no longer more than definitions when you have passed; the laws become hypotheses; and at the same time that you prove the essential role of these hypotheses, you show their merely temporary utility—you make it evident that these definitions are convenient but ephemeral. What remains? Nothing, or little more than nothing, and the most precious idols of primary religion go to join the dead stars in the depopulated heavens.

Does this mean, sir, that you doubt science more than truth? Neither the one nor the other; but the latter gives way constantly before the advance of the former, and, as man proceeds one step farther, the space he must cross withdraws before him; beyond the steppe whose extent his eye embraces, others await him, and still others, for he only is assured of reaching the end who stopped with the rudiments—and learned them by heart. . ..

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274

VERY naturalist wishes to spend a part of his time in the field, observing, taking notes and making collections. It often happens that such field work can be done best by camping. Methods employed by field naturalists while camping vary according to the character of the country and according to the objects to be attained.

It is the purpose here to give a few hints concerning traveling on foot, and carrying a light camp outfit on the back as a pack. These hints are based upon considerable experience with this method of camping in various parts of the United States, and are given with the hope that others may find them an aid in planning similar trips. This kind of camping can be of service only when the necessary collecting outfit and specimens collected are comparatively light in weight and when the area of the region to be covered is considerable. In my own work I can use this method because I am collecting only grasses which are easily prepared, and because I wish to cover in a single season a wide area, usually several states. I wish to travel quickly by railroad or other regular transportation, from one locality to another, often two or three hundred miles apart, spending one to five days in each place. It does not pay to outfit with wagon or pack animals for so short a time and one is not sufficiently mobile when stopping at hotels. With a light outfit one can start into the field as soon as he arrives at a station, thus saving much time. If more than five days is required for a given excursion, I am in the habit of taking a pack animal to carry my outfit, as I can not conveniently carry in a pack provisions for more than that number of days.

In calculating the details of an outfit one must first determine the weight he is able or willing to carry. If the weight carried is too great the mobility is too much reduced. Yet enough in the way of food, clothing and bedding must be carried to prevent too much risk to the health from short rations and exposure. The problem before us is to adjust the factors so that the result may represent a maximum efficiency. I endeavor to keep the total weight of my outfit within fifty pounds and we may assume in general that a man should limit his pack to a third of his own weight. With this weight I count on walking fifteen to twenty miles a day over ordinary roads or trails that do


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Rh not include over two thousand feet of total climbing. In climbing one can count on one thousand feet an hour, without a pack if the trail is steep. With a fifty-pound pack the time is about doubled. If one finds it necessary to carry more than the weight indicated, the distance traveled is correspondingly reduced. From the total weight one must subtract the weight of the collecting outfit. My own outfit consists of a wood slat press with straps, twenty-five light-weight driers, one hundred sheets of inner papers, a few ounces of cardboard slips for fastening over the bends in specimens, and my plant digger. The total weight is not over five pounds. The weight of the specimens gathered is not likely to be, on a single trip, more than five pounds, which increase in weight is, however, offset by the decrease in weight of supplies. We have then forty-five pounds for the remainder of the pack.

The outfit may be considered conveniently under the following heads: clothing, bedding, cooking utensils, provisions, miscellaneous. The exact selection depends upon the length of the trip, the character of the country, climate, accessibility of supply stations and many other conditions which can not here be foreseen. It is clear that in the high Sierras more bedding is necessary than in Florida, that more provisions must be carried in a wilderness than in a settled country, and that rain or mosquitoes must be provided against where these occur. Therefore in discussing the requisites for an outfit I shall not make a definite selection, but shall offer suggestions as to such selection based upon my own experience.

In my own work I travel from place to place with the usual baggage allowance of one hundred and fifty pounds aside from my hand baggage. In this baggage I carry such articles as I am likely to need at hotels where I may stop, and also a selection of camp equipment, and extra driers and other collecting supplies. Sometimes I go first to a hotel, where I leave my baggage while I make an excursion of a few days on foot. Sometimes I travel in camp clothes and pack, in which case I can leave my baggage at the depot and go at once into the country.

Concerning clothes for camping, I can say little except that it is very necessary that the foot covering, whatever its other qualities, should be well fitted and well "broken in," for it is absolutely essential in a walking trip that the feet should be kept in good condition. As to other articles, I prefer heavy socks, wide-brimmed cowboy hat, and, in the mountains, woolen underwear. I usually go without a coat, but carry a sweater. The extra clothes may be reduced to an extra suit of underwear, an extra pair of socks, two large handkerchiefs and a pair of moccasins. The latter I use chiefly at night.

The bedding may be reduced to a single blanket of moderate weight or two of light weight. I also carry a waterproof poncho. This is a protection against rain, dew or damp ground at night and can be used


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276 as a cape in the daytime in case of showers. I carry in my baggage a light, so-called balloon silk A tent for use in regions where one may expect rain at night. This has a ridge rope by which it is suspended and weighs six pounds. In mountain regions where the nights are cold I depend for warmth on keeping a fire during the night, rather than on carrying extra bedding. But in my baggage I carry a waterproof sleeping bag for use on longer trips with a pack animal. Where mosquitoes abound one must be provided with a cheese-cloth tent, or at least with a head veil.

The cooking utensils may be reduced to a very few pieces, but in this aluminum age one may add a few luxuries. While one can with patience cook over a small fire between stones, this method has its disadvantages. There may be no stones; but even when these are present it is not easy to find them of the proper size and shape for the small vessels used by one person, such as a pail four inches in diameter. I therefore usually carry a "stove" or grate. This consists of three pieces of strap iron about fifteen inches long, fastened by four cross strips. This can be set across stones or small logs and is certainly a great convenience. It is strong enough to hold in the middle a quart of water. When packed it is placed in a cloth sack to prevent the soot from soiling other articles. Two or three dishes may be cooking at the same time by this means. The cooking utensils consist of a straight-sided coffee pot, a pail in which this fits, both of aluminum, all with the parts riveted, not soldered, and finally a small frying pan of iron. I have not found aluminum so satisfactory for the latter article, as foods cooked in it seem to burn more easily. A second small pail is a convenience, in fact I often use in an emergency a tin fruit can with the top melted off and a wire bail attached. Each utensil used over the fire should be packed in a light cloth bag to prevent the soot from soiling the other articles. One can not take time to remove soot after each meal. In addition might be mentioned a plate and two bowls of aluminum, a drinking cup of tin (aluminum gets too hot), knife, fork and dessert spoon. I must not fail to mention the canvas bucket. This is light and collapsible, and is very convenient to bring a supply of water from a distance. One can not always camp in the immediate vicinity of water. The best matches are the old-fashioned sulphur kind that come in blocks. These should be kept in a waterproof box. In a recent work on camping I saw mentioned a handy contrivance for blowing the fire. It consists merely of a rubber tube with a short metal tube at the end. When cooking with such a small outfit it is necessary to use a small fire, frequently replenished. The blower serves a useful purpose for bringing the fire quickly into action. I have used this article during the last season and can heartily recommend it to others. In describing my outfit I mentioned a plant digger. For this purpose


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Rh I use an "intrenching tool," an implement in use in the army. This ig a broad-bladed knife of good steel which fits in a scabbard carried at the belt. It is an excellent thing with which to dig plants, but it can be used for several other purposes, the most important of which is to cut fire-wood and incidentally to make friends with vicious dogs. This tool may be obtained of Francis Bannerman, 549 Broadway, New York.

In choosing the food for such a trip as described one is limited.by: the available supply and is governed by one's tastes and by the necessity of reducing the total weight to a minimum. It is essential that the? ration be fairly well balanced. The following is given only as a suggestion, as tastes and conditions are so variable. It is also to be remembered that the supplies must be obtained from ordinary sources as found' in the region visited. A few kinds of food, such as erbswurst and dried egg, I may provide at the beginning of the trip, as these can not be purchased at village grocery stores. For drinking I carry cocoa, as coffee is more bulky and tea I do not care for. If cold water of good quality can be obtained I drink the cocoa only at breakfast. To the cocoa I often add a little arrowroot. To avoid lumps the sugar may be mixed with the dry cocoa before the hot water is added. Milk I carry in condensed form. Dried milk is not so satisfactory, as it does not mix well for cooking, but it has the advantage of light weight. Since a can of condensed milk will last one or two days, according to size, it is necessary to protect an opened can or there will be a fine mess in one's baggage. I keep the can in a closed tin can just large enough to hold it. The milk can is opened by driving two small wire nails in the top at opposite sides. When not in use the nails remain in as stoppers. The foods may be classified into carbohydrates, fats, nitrogenous foods, fruits and condiments. Of the first may be mentioned sugar, which with me is an important article of diet, as I eat half a pound a day. The starchy foods present considerable variety. Bread heads the list, but not infrequently one is unable to obtain this at a supply station. Furthermore, on a walking trip one can scarcely count on carrying bread sufficient for more than two days. Flour is likely to be the staple. I have found self-rising pancake flour the most convenient, as this comes in small packages all ready for use. One can carry but a few pounds of flour and it is difficult to obtain so small a quantity of the ordinary sort at a store. Other starchy foods that I often use are grape nuts, cream of wheat (or similar breakfast food) and rice. This last, however, I do not much relish, though it is improved by cooking with raisins or dried fruit. When possible I add potatoes and onions, but both are bulky and can be carried only in small quantity. The fats are supplied usually by bacon. Butter can be carried only in the mountains where the climate is cool, otherwise it turns to oil. The nitrogen may be supplied by canned meats, which are heavy; by canned beans,


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278 which are also heavy; by dry beans, which take too long to cook to suit me, or by dried egg. I depend largely upon this last. It comes in convenient-sized cans and has proved very satisfactory. One can make omelette or scrambled eggs, or it can be mixed with the flour for cakes. I use the last method frequently, putting into the flour the equivalent of two eggs. Fruit is an essential in camping. I prefer dried cherries, but if these can not be obtained, I use prunes, dried peaches, apples or whatever is available. A package of raisins is a good thing to have. Of the condiments I carry only salt, as I do not care for pepper, vinegar and so on, which are inconvenient and superfluous articles for a pack. There are various kinds of concentrated soup packages on the market only one of which I have found worth carrying. That is erbswurst, sold by Abercrombie & Fitch Co., of New York. It is put up in pound, half-pound and quarter-pound packages and consists of a meal ground from peas, vegetables and meat, seasoned, ready for use by adding water. It is a balanced ration easy to prepare and very concentrated. On a forced march one could subsist upon this alone.

The miscellaneous portion of the outfit includes a few toilet articles, a pocket dissecting outfit, together with bandages, carbolated vaseline, etc., for patching myself in case of accident, needle, thread, twine, safety-pins and similar small articles. For packing these and the food not contained in the original cases I use small cloth bags. The sugar, dried fruit, rice or even the flour or cream of wheat, is transferred to a cloth sack, as paper sack or pasteboard boxes will not withstand close packing.

The greater part of the outfit is carried in a pack upon the back. If the bulk is small an ordinary soldier's knapsack is satisfactory. When it is necessary to carry more the outfit may be placed in two waterproof duffle bags and these carried in a strap pack. The most satisfactory pack that I have tried is the Merriam pack by which a portion of the weight is supported at the hips.

In a trip of three to five days from a station, the outfit consists, then, of the Merriam pack in which is placed every thing except the poncho and blanket which are folded in a roll on the outside, the plant digger carried at the belt and the plant press carried in the hand. I carry in addition a haversack for overflow articles. I try to start with two loaves of bread, which being too bulky for the pack I place in the haversack. In this I carry also my note book and drinking cup.

Having decided upon a route for a short trip, which should be arranged if possible so that no portion is traveled over twice, I carry my pack to a favorable locality for collecting and unload. After exhausting the collecting I move on to another place. Occasional plants are dug up without removing the pack but this is somewhat of a strain and should not be done regularly. One is obliged to rest every two or three


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Rh miles, and by selecting the proper localities, these halts can be used for collecting. The pack can be removed by unfastening a single clasp. If long side trips are to be made, such as climbing a mountain, the outfit can be cached until the return.

An average day in the field, thus equipped, would be about as follows: Supposing that I have arrived in the forenoon at the terminus of a branch railway line in the mountains, I obtain such supplies as may be necessary and start at once toward what appears to be the most favorable collecting ground. At noon I eat a light lunch such as grape-nuts, usually not going to the trouble of making a fire. About five o'clock in the afternoon I begin to watch for a favorable camping spot. The requisites are good water, firewood in abundance and a comfortable location for my camp. As I carry no axe it is necessary that the firewood be in shape for use without chopping. At altitudes where the temperature sinks to 40° F., it is necessary to keep a fire all night, as the bedding carried is not sufficient to keep one comfortably warm. A level spot is selected and freed from stones, sticks and cones. It is an advantage if one can place his bed by a large rock or log and build the fire a short distance in front as the heat is then reflected and the wind is kept off. It is scarcely safe to build a fire against a large log or stump, as it may start a forest fire or it may at least be troublesome to put out the next morning. A supply of firewood should be placed near at hand and the fire replenished as needed, which is at intervals of about two hours during the night. There is no advantage in making a larger fire as one is driven farther away and gets cold just as soon when the fire dies out, and furthermore there is more danger from sparks falling on the blanket. It may be remarked that the falling temperature always wakes one up in time to replenish the fire if the nights are cold. Having gathered the firewood one prepares for supper. I do not utilize the large fire for cooking, but build a small fire near-by, under the grate previously described. The small fire can be controlled to suit the requirements. As one sits near the stove while cooking, the fire must not be too large. The supper is with me the important meal of the day. There is time to cook such articles as need prolonged boiling. At this meal I have pancakes, bacon, potatoes, onions, fruit or whatever my supplies will furnish. As the cooking utensils are limited to a frying pan, coffee pot, pail and tin can, the amount of cooking that can be carried on at one time is limited. Enough dried fruit is made into sauce to last for the breakfast and possibly the lunch following. Cream of wheat will also be cooked for the following breakfast. If potatoes are carried enough are boiled at night to give a small surplus for frying the next morning. As a matter of fact when one is alone it is necessary to limit the variety of food at any one meal, since it is not convenient to carry in a pack the surplus from a meal, especially if in liquid form.


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280 Supper over I go to bed at once. The bed consists of the poncho and blanket doubled on the ground near the fire. I never take the trouble to collect boughs or otherwise prepare a bed, except to remove obstructions. If soft turf is present so much the better, but this does not often happen. Usually I sleep on the bare ground as bunch grass is not comfortable. As explained before I carry an extra suit of underwear and a pair of socks. At night I remove the clothes worn during the day, put on dry underwear and socks, and if the weather demands, put on the other suit of underwear over the first, and finally the sweater and moccasins, and am ready to fold myself in my blanket To do this I spread the blanket and poncho over me, roll first to one side, then to the other until the slack is taken up on each side. In this way the two edges are lapped beneath and I can roll to either side, the blanket remaining tight. For a pillow I use the bag in which I carry my clothes, filling it with leaves. I arise at dawn and retire soon after dark, for there is little to do when alone by a campfire.

As partially indicated above the breakfast consists of cocoa and cream of wheat or other breakfast food cooked the night before, and if I am hungry enough, other food left from supper. The utensils are now cleaned and packed for the day.

The plant driers are changed once or twice a day. As I usually carry only twenty-five driers, it is necessary to remove the plants and dry the driers in the sun, or if the weather is damp, before a campfire. Ordinarily in sunny weather I attend to the drying about 10 and 2, most grasses being dry in twenty-four hours. In this way I can prepare about twenty-five specimens each day. But if the collecting is particularly good I can double the number by drying before the campfire at night.

With the outfit I have described one can travel safely, that is, without subjecting himself to exposure, but the work is not easy. Of course if two persons arrange to travel in company the trip would be more pleasant and a few additional comforts might be included. One advantage in traveling afoot is the mobility. Little time is lost in getting to the collecting ground and one is not confined to roads or trails as when traveling with pack animals. One can cross a mountain range or from one railroad to another. The available range with full complement of supplies is as much as one hundred miles.

The traveler should be provided with good maps and a compass. Topographic sheets of a considerable portion of the country can be purchased from the United States Geological Survey.

The above suggestions are offered for the purpose of aiding any who propose making natural history collections. I should not advise this method for those who are going for pleasure only, as it is hard work and the necessary drudgery is only balanced by the increased opportunity for collecting and observing.


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Rh

T was urged by a certain Greek philosopher that in ignorance alone lay the real reason of wrong-doing, and that none who truly understood the right could thereafter be guilty of wrong. Ignorance in a narrower sense has been offered as the explanation for misunderstanding and consequent trouble of a more or less serious nature between nations and races as well as between individuals. Ignorance of one another's civilization, lack of appreciation of each other's character and ideals, failure to comprehend the motives of essentially simple actions—all these are at fault when great nations disagree. No other interpretation is indeed possible, since longing for power, love of conquest, lust to slay, can hardly be suggested in calm seriousness as motivating the actions of nations who are followers of the gentle Jesus, the kindly Buddha, the wise Confucius, in a supposedly civilized century.

It seems strange at first that there should be room for such lack of mutual understanding and sympathy, in view of the vaunted increase of international intercourse, due to the many opportunities of communication by mail and by wire, to the great interchange of commodities made possible by commercial progress, and to the growing facilities for international travel. It seems strange, also, when we recollect that in the employ of every nation there are numerous persons skilled in the language of every other nation of political or commercial importance, to serve the one as interpreters of the thoughts and words of the other, and to translate the ideas and ideals of these peoples for each other in any emergency that may arise. Such experts are found likewise in all great educational centers. There is not a university without its corps of trained linguists, while its leaders in all of the various departments must possess a fair degree of familiarity with numerous foreign tongues. Even the students are becoming slightly cosmopolitan. A few Americans and Englishmen and Orientals are found at every European university of note, while in America are scattered students from Europe, from the far east and from South America.

Therefore we may claim to have interpreters. They are few indeed, in proportion to the number needed, as has been forcibly pointed out, with the plea that "governments, universities, churches, chambers of commerce, should have some definite plan of raising up a body of sympathetic scholars, who shall be first-hand interpreters of one nation to the other."

But in this very claim lies the explanation of the puzzle. As long


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282 as interpreters are needed, as long as the ability to interpret rests only with the officials of the government, the faculties of the universities, and the small proportion of citizens and students who have opportunity of extended residence in at least one country besides the native one, just so long is perfect understanding impossible. For perfect understanding between two nations results from an understanding between a majority of the citizens of these two nations, not from even the most perfect understanding and appreciation of one by but a small minority in the other. This is true even if the minority happens to be the political body in control. For in one way or another the people rule, and public opinion and desire, however faulty, exert a mighty influence.

Accordingly, if international sympathy and agreement rest upon adequate mutual understanding attained through the complete comprehension of more languages than the mother-tongue among the general public—whether these languages be spoken, printed in newspapers, pamphlets and books, or written in letters amicably exchanged—the immediate solution suggesting itself is this: Let all or a majority of the citizens of each nation learn thoroughly the language of each other nation. Then will the barrier to intercommunication disappear. Each individual may read at will and at once the publications of every other; may express his ideas and have his questions answered, orally or by correspondence, with citizens of any nation; and may feel himself linguistically at home in any country of the world, without the present need of guidebooks, couriers and interpreters, ever provocative of mutual distrust.

Such a proposition is, however, utterly futile from a practical point of view. Persons in comfortable financial circumstances may learn several languages besides their own, business men stationed in foreign countries may do so to some extent, and peasant immigrants may do the same in limited degree; but the possessor of more than a moderate familiarity with two or three languages is called a linguist, and placed in a class apart, as differing by that very fact from the majority of mankind. Genuine admiration is accorded any person who has completely mastered three or four languages in addition to his mother-tongue, and speaks and writes all of them with equal fluency, exactness and elegance. Nor is any one surprised to hear that such an expert spends many years and much care in acquiring these three or four languages with a reasonable perfection of pronunciation, syntax and style, or that teaching this is in itself a profession worthy of remuneration.

Yet to be truly a polyglot one must be familiar with not only French and German, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, each difficult of mastery, and the Scandinavian languages, but also Dutch, Flemish, Portuguese, Roumanian, Catalonian, Greek and the many languages allied to Russian, such as Bohemian, Polish, Servian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, etc., and also the non-Aryan tongues of Europe, such as Hungarian and


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Rh Finnish and the scattered Yiddish. Not even with this may he be content, although it demand the work of a lifetime and more, but must turn to the east, with its Persian, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish and numerous Hindoo tongues, and then pass on to China and Japan, and even to Korea.

Who can boast of all this? Yet who will deny that not one nor many, but in truth each and every one, of the intelligent citizens of every nation should have the power of overcoming these linguistic barriers? This is one of the great needs of the civilized world, as urged in the Prime Minister's address at the Seventeenth Universal Peace Congress held in London, July, 1908: " I have said it before, but I would say it again, the main thing is that nations should get to know and understand one another." This is profoundly true. Not only the future but the present of these various-tongued races and nations is intertwined to such an extent that the power of free intercommunication is an imperious necessity. But if this direly needed intercourse is so impossible of universal or even fairly general attainment under existing circumstances, another solution must be sought.

The solution that presents itself next is, that some one of these languages be chosen for universal international use. Next after the mother-tongue, this should be learned by every inhabitant of the civilized world, and all publications of any importance whatever should be published directly or in duplicate in this international medium. All international correspondence should be thus conducted, and the language likewise used in all international assemblies and conventions. To learn one language besides the native tongue would not be so absolutely impossible as the absurd idea of learning many or all of them. The proposal is good, and the selection of this language at once becomes a problem worthy of attention, for that one language should serve all nations of the world in international dealings is eminently reasonable.

The place of a semi-common language among the educated classes was held by Latin in the middle ages, and the mind at once reverts to this, with speculations as to the possibility of its revival. But Latin can not serve this purpose. Its vocabulary is too limited and too unsuitable for discussion of modern themes, since even a bicycle or an umbrella demands circumlocution in Latin, while the introduction of new and modern words would destroy its purity, and make it but a barbarous hodge-podge of Latin forms. Moreover, the difficulties of Latin grammar and syntax prevent this language from being easily mastered. Only at the expense of much time and effort can the modern mind completely assimilate the ancient ways of word-inflection and sentence construction. Any one may admire the purity and severe elegance of Ciceronian Latin, but not every one is able to imitate it. Yet Ciceronian Latin would unhesitatingly be chosen as the standard for a revivification of this tongue. The silver Latinity and that of the


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284 middle ages are as out of the question as the "modern" Latin which for want of a better medium is forced to serve in a multitude of scientific classifications and descriptions of the present day. This too is in regard to Latin as a written language. Speaking it is a still more difficult problem, one before which even the Latin specialist is ill at ease. It is evident that the idea of bringing Latin in any shape into real use as an auxiliary language in the busy modern world is absolutely hopeless.

What is true of Latin is equally true of Greek, with its own peculiar alphabet, used by no other language, and its even greater remoteness from present European tongues, in spite of the many derivatives from it in modern vocabularies, especially in technical terminology, and in spite of the fact that the idiom developed from ancient Greek is a spoken language to-day. The languages of the past can not serve the peoples' of the present in any immediate and practical capacity.

The next alternative is the consideration of the modern and living languages. For French was the accepted language of European courts, in times not yet remote, as well as the language of diplomacy and of polite literature; although, as in the case of Latin, this language too was semi-universal among chiefly the educated and politically powerful classes. Is it feasible to restore French to that high estate from which it has now fallen? Hardly so, with English a powerful competitor, and German vying with both. From this very competition it is clear that neither French nor any other national speech can to-day or to-morrow become the accepted auxiliary language. This idea, untenable now, may find acceptance in the far future, after the establishment of international unity and understanding, and after the forgetting of international jealousies and struggles for political preferment and commercial supremacy. But at present it is plainly "Utopian. No nation of to-day will yield to any one other nation the immense commercial and political advantage given by permitting the mother-tongue of that nation to become the accepted medium for international dealings. No American or Englishman would consent to an attempt to have German used exclusively, in his intercourse with Spanish-speaking peoples, or any other peoples, nor would he consent to French for such a sole medium. No German would accept French in this capacity, or English; nor would the Frenchman be a whit more generous. This same feeling, intermingled with a host of ancient grudges, would extend to the lesser nations whose languages meet with still less consideration in such theorizing.

In days of old, that nation politically most powerful might sometimes thrust its language upon conquered peoples, by sheer force of arms. This method is rather impracticable to-day, although a hint of it remains in the ineffectual struggles of the Poles to retain their own idiom in spite of the "official" tongues established among them, or of the Boers against the "official" English. Clinging to the native


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Rh tongue overbalances practical and economic considerations, and hence the Flemish, Celtic and similar "revivals."

The proportion of those speaking a certain language is no less impracticable a basis for the choice of an international auxiliary medium. Leaving out the question of Asiatic tongues, in spite of their superiority in this regard, the selection is among those same reciprocally jealous nations, namely, Russian, French, English and German. Moreover, this method would be unfair to multitudes among nations speaking other languages. For even French (in France, Belgium and Switzerland) is spoken by only about forty-five millions among the three hundred and fifty millions of Europeans, English by about forty millions, and so on. If the calculation be made upon a wider basis, and the new world and the far east included, the additional figure for English would be more than neutralized by the additional figure for Spanish tongues and the entrance of the multitudinous non-Aryan as well as Aryan languages.

Let still a different basis for the selection be offered: Let that language be chosen which is the easiest of acquirement for all peoples to whom some other language than this is the native tongue. This is even more perplexing. The people of each nation, accustomed to the national language from infancy, are unconscious of its peculiarities and irregularities, its difficulties of pronunciation, inflection and syntax, and its various idiomatic expressions. Not aware that these are difficulties, they unhesitatingly declare their own language the easiest of all. Yet English-speaking people would debar German from the choice because its mastery takes far too long, and is woefully hampered by the umlaut vowels, the three categories of grammatical gender, the complicated verb and the troublesome word-order. Similar objections exist for the Scandinavian languages, while against Russian are its additional vowels and additional consonant combinations, its perfective verbs, its seven-case substantive, with changing declensions for noun, adjective and pronoun, and three classes of formal gender, its alphabet which like Greek and German would need transliteration into the more universal and therefore also more economical Roman characters. French would be dismissed because of the "French u," the nasals, the varying verbal forms, the grammatical gender, quite as annoying as the gender of three categories in the previously mentioned languages, inasmuch as the assignment of those categories is entirely arbitrary in each from the point of view of the others, and the irregular plurals, and the many fine distinctions which make complete mastery all but hopeless. Of Spanish and Italian much the same may be said. English is quite as much out of the question as any other language. A smattering of it, as of the others, is obtainable without great difficulty, but to learn it well, to overcome all of its difficulties, is another matter. English contains three consonant sounds peculiar to English alone, the w, the sound


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286 represented by th in with, and the surd represented by the same digraph in pith. The accentuation is irregular and perplexing, while the orthography is hopeless. A half-dozen sounds may be represented by one letter or combination of letters, or one sound may be represented by as many varying signs.

There are irregular verbs, about 175 in number, numerous irregular and defective plurals, and a want of clearness due to the fact that nouns, particles, adjectives, adverbs and verbs may have the same form, and that different tenses of the verb may be identical in form, whether or not identical in sound. There is also a more or less stereotyped and yet elusive word-order.

Any and all of the national languages are then out of the question, first because none can yet secure adoption even if it were suitable, and second, because none is suitable. To be capable of truly international use a language must be possible of complete acquirement by all, whether linguistically gifted or not, and must be possible of such acquirement in such short space of time as can be devoted to this by the majority of the busy citizens of the world. Its acquirement must be an incidental preparation for one's profession or business, not an end in itself, or a matter of higher culture for the few.

Hence the thought of modifying some one of these languages, or combining them, or in some way forming a neutral language, objectionable to none on political or sentimental grounds, easily mastered by all, and therefore recognized by all nations and races as the accepted medium for international communication. That it must appeal to all sufficiently to be thus accepted is an important item, for, as has been previously intimated, nothing of this kind can be forced into use. It must be such a language that every intelligent citizen of each nation can and will learn it, as the first language to be mastered after his mother-tongue, to be able to read it, speak it and write it, in his capacity as a citizen of the world, and as an intelligent citizen of his own nation.

Since the days of Descartes this dream has haunted one and another, and plans for such a tongue have been proposed, necessarily crude at first, gaining in value as time went on, and as each author of such a plan profited by the faults in the projects of his predecessors. The earliest attempts were to create a language of philosophical or a priori nature, in which words are reduced to mere formulæ, a certain letter of the alphabet indicating the concrete, another vegetable life, another animal life and so on. The idea, although wholly impracticable, has not yet entirely disappeared, and a priori schemes are still occasionally promulgated. One project, for example, has the following


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Rh formations upon the letter m: mab, "mankind"; mac, "monkey"; mad, "cat"; maf, "dog"; mag, "bear"; mas, "horse"; me, "bird"; mi, "reptile"; mo, "fish," etc. Quite the opposite of these are the a posteriori languages, based upon the principle of borrowing, selecting and simplifying from already existing languages. This latter method, with a negligible admixture of the a priori, proves the only sound one, and all projects meeting with the slightest favor have been of this class. Among the numerous languages proposed, two alone have succeeded in obtaining any prominence or general publicity. The first of these was Volapük, published in 1880. Societies for its propaganda were organized, some instruction books and several magazines published. The success of the language, in spite of its crudities and too great difficulty, afforded proof that an international language was desired. But dissensions arose, chiefly as to whether numerous proposed changes should be introduced, with or without the consent of the author, who had assumed an unfortunate attitude of ownership of the language. By giving attention to discussion of such matters instead of to propaganda work, the Volapükists lost all they had gained.

Their bitter experience taught a lesson to the promulgators of the only other important project for an international language, the only one which to-day receives general attention. When overzealous theorists proposed changes in Esperanto, and insisted upon the adoption of their "improvements" the great majority of Esperantists refused to countenance any sudden or radical changes, declaring instead for a unity and stability. Their action was the more decisive in that the proposed improvements appealed to them as simply the marring of a language already proved satisfactory and practicable, and already existing as a living language, in which any changes should come gradually and systematically. The smaller restless and theorizing element attempted to create a schism through the use of various publications attacking Esperanto or Esperantists, and arrived at a somewhat unstable idiom of their own, which was called simplified Esperanto by some and a new language by others, among its advocates. A certain amount of newspaper notoriety was obtained in both Europe and America, but no definite or serious results.

The wisdom of the Esperantists as a whole is apparent in the progress due to their steadfastness and united effort. Those who know more or less of the language are reckoned by hundreds of thousands, judging by the number of text-books sold by responsible publishing houses, but the number of persons announced as being in the actual propaganda movement consists only of those who are registered and paying members of some official organization, such as the national associations, British, French, German, Japanese, American, and various international


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288, such as those of Esperantist physicians, scientists, pacifists, and many others. Propagated steadily but unobtrusively in all quarters of the world, the international language idea, represented by Esperanto, has loomed large and become a reality, even in this short space of time since its presentation to the world. Doubtless one reason is that the unbounded possibilities of the practical side of the language have only as yet begun to develop, while the insistence upon the ideals of "Esperantism" has been emphasized. This word Esperantism has come to stand for a spirit of tolerance and conciliation which is distinctly worthy of note, and which materially aids in paving the way for ultimate complete understanding and "the federation of the world."

It is a significant fact that the two nations which may be said to hold the linguistic balance of power, since their decision for the international language and their refusal to continue struggling with the manifold tongues of Europe, except for cultural purposes, would have great and well-nigh decisive weight, namely, the United States and Japan, were the two countries to send official government representatives to the last (fourth) International Esperanto Congress, held in Dresden, August, 1908. For these two nations whose more and more intimate relations demand better mutual understanding and appreciation, as forcibly pointed out in the document previously mentioned, the most immediate and practicable method of obtaining such general and immediate intercourse lies ready at hand. The Esperanto movement, strongest in Europe, has found favorable reception in Japan, whose minister of foreign affairs is president of the Japanese Esperanto Association. In the United States the present propaganda association is less than a year old, yet the number and quality of persons interested in the idea and movement is such that European Esperantists expect to be invited to the United States for the Sixth Annual International Esperanto Congress, in 1910. It is to be hoped that this will come to pass, and that some educational institution of note will open its doors for the occasion, as did Cambridge University for the Congress in England in 1907. In the meantime, it certainly behooves every one who approves of the wide-spread international acquaintance, understanding and conciliation, to examine this language which offers such great possibilities, since it has proved itself fully worthy of consideration in the brief time that it has existed as a living language. It behooves every one to examine it, and to aid its promulgation as best he may, by advocating it, by urging its introduction into schools and publishing in it, entire or in abstract, at least some of the writings which he now offers to the reading public in English or some other national idiom only. For Esperanto is solving the problem of an international language, which is "An attempt to save the greatest amount of labor, and open the widest fields of thought and action to the greatest number."


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ONSIDERING the second question first, the reply to it will depend a good deal upon education. An extremely ignorant person might answer that all parts of a living body are alive except the bones. It required some education before we medical men learned to realize, without surprise, that crude metallic bodies—bullets, pins, needles, wire sutures buried in our internal organs, nails driven into our fractured bones by surgeons, finger rings, scissors, forceps, spectacles, etc., left in the peritoneal cavity by careless operators—could remain in a human body without any immediate danger to life.

We had to learn also that large crystalline masses—the various forms of calculi—and dead fœtuses; lithopodians; even dead children at full term, both intra-and extra-uterine—could remain in a living body for several decades without any immediate danger to life. Thus we learn from these crude examples that living bodies may contain dead bodies, and dead substances of various kinds. Numerous other instances will now be considered.

The protective shells of some animals, the epidermal appendages (horns, tusks, hoofs, claws, nails, hair, wool, etc.), of others, are only alive at their proximal ends—their "roots" so-called. Their distal extremities are not living. They are products of life, but so are our coal beds, chalk cliffs, coral reefs and tortoise shell combs, but they are not alive.

If we ask, Where is the line of division between the dead and living in a cow's horn, or an elephant's tusk, we must reply, there is no such line. The transition from living to dead tissue is a gradational one. And this simple example should help to dispel the common error that everything in this world must be either dead or alive. Not so. It may be between the two: neither one or the other. Here, if anywhere, the old truism, Natura non facet saltem, deserves special recognition.

We must certainly realize that the gases, foodstuffs and excrementitious matters in the alimentary canal and the contents of the urinary bladder are not alive. Is the bile living? Bile is an excrement from the hepatic cells, the histological units of the liver, which find it necessary to discharge their toxic excreta into those minute drains, the bile ducts, and thence into the main sewer of the intestine. In thus maintaining their own normal metabolism, they save us from hepatic toxæmia. Bile is not alive.


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290 Is milk a living substance? It is a saline solution, containing sugar and albumen. Microscopically we find it swarming with the postmortem débris of epithelium cells that have undergone fatty degeneration. It is the fatty dust into which these dead cells have crumbled that rises to the surface as cream and when amassed in the churn constitutes the butter of commerce. Milk is emphatically a dead material.

What of that milky emulsion we call chyle? We can not say it is alive in the intestine; nor does it become so in the thoracic duct, nor in the subclavian vein. Neither does mingling with the blood give it life. It is dead.

What of the blood itself? Commonly we speak of it as being "warm with life." Not so in cold-blooded animals. Again, it is referred to as the "vital fluid," the "life-blood"; and we say: "the blood is the life thereof." So it is, in the sense that we can not live without it, and if we lose it by hemorrhage we die. Nevertheless, the blood is not alive. Its corpuscles are, but the plasma in which they float is not living. This plasma is the natural habitat of the living corpuscle (much in the same way as a pond of water is the natural habitat of Amœba proteus), but it is not alive.

Can our blood corpuscles live in a dead plasma? It is not very long ago that in cases of hemorrhage we injected into the blood vessels large quantities of cow's milk; now-a-days we inject salt solution. In some cases we inject so much of these dead fluids that the quantity may exceed that of the normal blood plasma left behind after the hemorrhage. Hence we know by actual experiment, in these cases, that the larger part of the blood plasma mixture is not alive.

Furthermore, human leucocytes have been kept alive in normal salt solution outside of the body for many hours, retaining all their amoeboid and phagocytic properties; and recently in a properly prepared solution containing 3 per cent, of sodium citrate and 1 per cent, of sodium chloride, B. C. Boss has kept human leucocytes three days alive and has caused them to protrude and retract the most remarkably long pseudopodia so that they actually resembled squids, or tarantulas. Thus we see a living plasma is not necessary for the blood corpuscles: they flourish in a dead one. The blood plasma is not alive.

In the days of venesection we were taught that the last act of vitality in blood when drawn from the body was its coagulation, but is this really any more a vital process than the clotting of sour milk? I think not.

In the same category with milk and blood plasma, we must place lymph, the fluids in the pleura, pericardium, peritoneum and synovial sacs, and also the cerebro-spinal fluid; none of them is alive. It might be supposed that the delicate structures of our central


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Rh nervous system must at least be protected from contact with dead fluids. Not so. In cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis, we draw off the cerebro-spinal fluid and inject into the cerebro-spinal canal a curative antimeningitic serum that has stood on the shelves of its manufacturer, cold and dead, for half a year or more before being used.

In this line of thought we have reached the conclusion that the crystalline masses, gases and fluids in an animal body are none of them truly alive.

What have we left? What parts of the body do live? The histological units—the individual cells: these are the living inhabitants, in that great organic community, which constitutes a living animal.

The fluids of the body are inert plasmata designed for the maintenance, nourishment and functional integrity of these living units. The cells of the body are alive, but nothing else in it can be truly said to live.

Let us now ask: When an animal dies how much of it is dead? An ignorant person would reply: "All of it." Not so. The cells of a corpse remain alive some considerable time after the man has ceased to breathe. The cells of the liver continue their glycogenic function. Active spermatozoa have been found in the testicle, and living leucocytes in the cavities of the heart, many hours after death. The skin of a recent corpse can be successfully transplanted into a living person, as may also some of the internal organs, bones and joints. Recently one of our surgeons has transplanted an entire knee joint (a healthy one) from the body of a corpse into the limb of a person from whom a diseased knee joint had been just previously removed. The case is progressing favorably.

In the retrogressive phenomena of death as in the evolution of living from dead matter, the old saying of nature not making leaps, again asserts itself, and the prevalent error that everything must be either dead or alive, with no intermediate gradations, becomes pronouncedly manifest.

We now come to the question: What is a living animal? The one most marked characteristic of things that are truly alive is motion, especially locomotive auto-mobility, to which must be added growth and reproduction.

It is now generally admitted that the basis of life is electricity. The power that produces muscular motion, cell-movement, cell-division, cell union (as in fecundation), and embryological growth, is essentially a form of electro-magnetic energy, this energy being generated by the successive chemical decompositions and syntheses—the electrolytic asso


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292 ciations and dissociations of atoms and molecules—of anions and cations—in the complex phenomena of metabolism throughout the body. No nutritive change, even in a single cell, can take place without a disturbance of electric equilibrium and the development of an electric current, be it ever so diminutive. Nerve force, electricity and "vital force" are identical in so far as they are all manifestations of electromagnetic energy. Every histological unit in an animal body is a diminutive battery in which such energy is evolved. This, I think, is common knowledge, that has passed beyond the realm of theory.

Perhaps the crudest and most evident illustration of the production of electricity by animal metabolism is exhibited in the electric fishes: the torpedo, the Gymnotus (electric eel), the Malapterurus (electric catfish), the skate and others. In these forms, it is true, we find a special electric apparatus, consisting of some hundreds of columns made up of millions of superimposed plates or discs, arranged transversely to the length of the columns and separated from one another by an albuminous liquid, thus resembling a voltaic pile. The distribution, or discharge of this electric energy is controlled by nerves emanating from the medulla oblongata. Thus the animal, at will, can shock and capture its prey, and even emit charges, in some instances, sufficient to injure, and perhaps kill, even men and horses.

A more delicate method of demonstrating the identity of nerve force and electricity was shown at the last meeting of the International Congress of Electrology and Radiology held in the University of Amsterdam, when Professor Salomonson, by using Einthoven's string-galvanometer (a sort of electric microscope), was able to measure, and render visible on a photographic plate, the electric current producing one contraction of a single muscle, for example, that of the quadriceps femoris during the patellary reflex. Even currents producing contractions in the cardiac muscles were exhibited. He presented on the screen a cardiogram, by which, he remarks: "Each muscular fiber of the heart has written its own sign-manual on the photographic plate." By means of this device he was able to exhibit visibly events successively occurring at intervals of one one-hundredth of a second, and electric nerve currents so small as the one ten-thousandth part of a single volt.

Now if every living animal, and every cell within it, be really an electrical machine—a generator of electro-magnetic energy—it is evident that in order to secure and use the power thus produced the apparatus must be insulated from its surroundings, otherwise the electricity would instantly escape back into the earth whence it came. All our electric machines and batteries are thus insulated.

Are animal bodies provided with this electric insulation? They are.


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Rh The insulatory resistance of the bare human skin varies from 1,000 to 6,000 ohms. In many animals the insulation is increased by non-conducting hair, wool, fur, etc. And naked man finds it expedient to reinforce his own insulation by clothing of silk, satin, hair, wool, flannel and other non-conducting materials. We are exhilarated by a dry atmosphere: depressed by a damp one, because the moist air, being a conductor, carries off some of our electricity to the earth, while dry air is a more complete insulator and prevents this leakage.

Besides contact with the air, the feet of animals are in actual contact with the earth itself, and accordingly ought to be endowed with a specially good insulation.

Finding no data on this point, I submitted to the U. S. Bureau of Standards some specimens of a horse's hoof, to have their insulation tested. The director, Professor S. W. Stratton, wrote me that the resistance of the first specimen, when dry, was 4,700 million ohms. This was a part of the "frog" of the foot. A second specimen, taken from the peripheral margin of the hoof was tested, of which the bureau reported that "by the direct-deflection method, using 120 volts and a very sensitive galvanometer, the deflection was so small that it could not be read." "The resistance was equal to or greater than 22 billion ohms. This corresponds to a specific resistance of about $$16.5 \times 10^{10}$$ ohms per centimeter cube." Professor Stratton adds: "Of course the actual resistance may be much higher, as it was too high to determine with any accuracy by this means."

Subsequently, Professor Chas. W. Mortimer, of the George Washington University, by using his Wheatstone Bridge apparatus, kindly tested for me, altogether, 67 specimens of animal and some vegetable structures, as to the insulating power of their external coverings. The specimens included the feet, claws and bills of sheep, rabbits and chickens; the fresh human umbilical cord, foetal membranes and placenta; the shell of an egg; the external coverings of fruits (oranges, apples, nuts, etc.) and of vegetables (turnips, onions, etc.).

In no instance did the external covering fail to exhibit a relatively greater resistance than the internal structure. In most of the specimens the resistance hovered about 10,000,000 ohms, some more, some less. In one instance, that of a green pea pod, the resistance of the unbroken pod was 500,000 ohms, while the external surface of the green pea itself was 10,000,000 ohms.

I did not test any cereal grains, but Mr. Lyman J. Briggs, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, has recently ascertained that the resistance of wheat grains, varying with


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294 temperature and moisture, is somewhere between 2 million and 10,000 million ohms.

It is conceivable that the grains of wheat exhumed with Egyptian mummies would scarcely have retained their germinating power after so many centuries had not nature clothed them with their insulating shells, and passing from these diminutive little lives of eggs, grains and cells, it is conceivable that this globe that we inhabit would itself become a moving sepulchre, devoid of all molecular transformations of energy, were it not for the external envelope of insulating atmosphere with which it is clothed. Without this insulation the energy of solar light and heat would no longer be transformed into things of beauty and life; but would at once be dissipated into the abysses of space and our earth would probably become as dead as the moon, which has no insulating covering, and, consequently, upon whose face, within the memory of man, no single change of feature has been observed.

In the foregoing discussion my purpose has been to lay the foundation for a modified definition of life. Every one is familiar with Spencer's definition, viz:

Never, perhaps, did human language attempt to express so much in so few words. In fact it is so condensed as to be difficult of comprehension. If the definition had been given first, few of us would ever guess that life was the thing it intended to define.

On page 80, Spencer says:

De Blainville said:

Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition at once general and continuous.

Criticizing this definition, Spencer remarks:

At the time Spencer wrote (1866), biology was not sufficiently advanced for him to realize that every cell in the body really was a minute electric battery, and that the coordinate and simultaneous action of millions of these batteries made up together the living body of a complete animal.


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Rh With these preliminaries, I submit the following definition of a living being. It is this: A living body, whether a simple cell or a fully developed mammal, consists of a temporary aggregation of a limited number of material particles, call them what we may—molecules, atoms, ions, electrons—whose actions and reactions between each other, and between themselves and their environing conditions (light, temperature, air, water, food, terrestrial magnetism, gravitation, etc.) are of such a kind as to generate electro-magnetic energy, which energy is and necessarily must be secured to the use of the individual producing it, by a semi-porous limiting external envelope which provides the individual with electric insulation from its surroundings.

It is upon this external electric insulation that I desire to insist as a necessary part of everything that can truly be said to "live, move and have its being." Vain and useless indeed would be the energy generated in living bodies by the successive compositions and decompositions, the integrations and disintegrations, the electrolytic associations and disassociations of ions and electrons resulting from animal metabolism, if no arrangement had been provided by which the energy developed could be secured to the use of the individual producing it, instead of instantly flashing back to the earth whence it came, which it inevitably would do, in the absence of such insulation.

That this insulatory covering really exists, in the case of animals, eggs, seeds, etc., has been shown by the experiments before mentioned. That the individual cells of the body—the histological units—are also provided with the same electric insulation, may be more difficult to demonstrate. But such demonstration is not altogether wanting. The red corpuscles of the blood are, in a measure, insulated from the serum in which they float. "The intact red corpuscles," writes Stewart, "have an electric conductivity so many times less than that of serum that they may, in comparison, be looked upon as non-conductors." Among other explanations he suggests that this may be because the envelope of the corpuscles refuses passage to the electric charge produced by the dissociation of ions within them.

In the developing ovum, according to this view, the ectoderm ought to be an insulator. I can give no proof of this, but it is significantly suggestive that the cerebro-spinal axis of the embryo (which we should think ought to receive a specially good insulation) is clothed on its outside by an investment from the ectodermic layer, produced by an invagination of that structure to form the medullary groove and canal in which the central nervous system pursues its development.

Finally, is the protoplasm of animal organisms a really living substance? The answer will depend upon our definition of the word


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296 "living." Properly speaking, protoplasm is neither dead nor alive: it is between the two.

If we could get together an ounce or a ton of it, we should say it was a substance or mass exhibiting some of the properties of living matter. We could not say it was a living individual. It is simply matter occupying a very high plane in those ascending gradational transformations between the dead and the living: between the simple inorganic constituents of the earth, and those more complex segregations of chemical atoms which finally become surrounded by a limiting insulatory envelope and thus constitute "physiological units," or living beings. But until this formation of units—this individualism—of the mass, protoplasm can not be said to live.

Of course, the direct transformation of inorganic matter into living animal matter is impossible. There must always occur the intermediate phenomenon of vegetable life. Vegetables can transform the inorganic chemical materials of the air and earth into their own structure, but the animal must either feed upon the products produced by the vegetable or upon other animals that have been so fed. No single definition of life, therefore, can include both animal and vegetable life, since the vegetable is an intermediate product between minerals and animals. The evolution of life is a gradational process. Things are not "either dead or alive." Some things, like protoplasm, are between the two.


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Rh

HOSE who have only a partial knowledge of the subject, regard the present time as the age of canals. They overlook the generations of time and the vast sums of money expended by other people who have held to the idea of the canal with a national fixity of purpose that has produced astonishing results. The amount of money expended so exceeds the sums spent in the United States, including the Isthmian Canal, that they appear like trivial things.

France has 3,045 miles of artificial waterways and 4,665 miles of canalized rivers, aggregating nearly 8,000 miles. These cost in the last thirty years five hundred million dollars. Belgium has one mile of canal navigation to eight miles of territory. Germany has spent, since 1900, eighty million dollars and has just authorized the expenditure of eighty-five million dollars more. Austria-Hungary within a few years has expended fifty-three million dollars and is yet pushing the work. The canals of Holland and some of those of southern France were built centuries ago.


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300 The result to the farmers was a harder blow to bear. Real estate value shrank to less than was paid for land forty years before. Central New York was the great wheat-growing region of the state, but by the rapidly moving freight of the railways they were unable to compete with the western wheat. This lost crop was so nearly total that they ceased to grow enough for their own mills. It appears as though they ought to have had business foresight to realize the value of the lateral canals as coal carriers. It was for this purpose that these canals were built.

They awoke from their dream of small economy to find themselves in the grasp of the great octopus of the coal roads, which for thirty-five years has been growing more exacting and oppressive. Throughout this region these roads are not only drawing the coal, but by their own agents they are delivering it at the door of the consumer.

We have been laying this upon the farmer and the people directly interested in maintaining these canals, and justly. There never was a moment when the mass of voters in this republican stronghold could not have dominated the situation. It was the old time-worn adage of a fool and his folly. He has not the negative merit of holding his tongue after he has committed the error. Utica, which could have saved the Shenango Canal, petitioned the state engineer's office and the canal board for the rebuilding of the canal as a coal carrier only a year ago. It was a childish effort and they awoke from the calm repose to find that their fair city was simply reduced to a state of mind and the real Utica was the Lackawanna road.

Before the Erie Canal was a practical waterway the people were keenly alive to the value of the lakes as commercial waterways. The earliest steamboat navigation as a well-developed enterprise upon inland waters was opened in the New York lake region. Upon three of the lakes—Cayuga, Seneca and Keuka—steam navigation appeared in 1820. The people were roused to enthusiasm. The first boats made their landings amid the shouts of the multitude, volleys of musketry and salvos of cannon. Gradually the steamboat service was extended until in 1827 steamboats were a general thing upon the lakes. Many years previous to this sloop navigation was resorted to for both freight and passengers. The first began regular trading trips in 1795 and gradually this form of navigation was extended over all the lakes.

The Erie Canal found abundant supplies of freight and passengers waiting when it passed through this region of the lateral canals. As a method of commercial interchange they never paid; whatever we may think about the ethics of the state making money off the people's enterprise, there was no question about its rights as late as 1873. Neither was any money lost until the people followed like a flock


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Rh of sheep the bell wetherweather [sic], the political factotum of the countryside, and surrendered its rights to the railways. The face of the country withered, as though stricken by a famine, under their remorseless demands. The fact that makes canal navigation not alone possible but profitable is that speed represents cost.

That which constitutes a profitable canal is not a dividend on the investment, but in augmenting the volume of trade. The profit that accrues is prospective, not immediate, and belongs to the people; a theory of public utilities that the state of New York never adopted.

Let us see what this meant to the farmer and the manufacturer. The manufactured product was of coarsest character, hoops, staves, shingles and sawed lumber, material that could not afford to pay a higher tariff for transportation. This was practically cut out. Farm produce was of a like character; potatoes, cabbage, onions and apples demanded a moderate price for carriage if they were to make a living return to the grower. These were no longer seen by the boatload except within wheeling distance of the Erie; a small supply was received from the Cayuga and Seneca canals. The wheat crop, as already noticed, had disappeared. Barley and oats, in the cheap days of 1870, represented little money to the grower, and hay at six and seven dollars a ton, including the cost of baling, was impossible as freight. It was reasonable to expect that the roads would not work against these products an impossible tariff. The way station received but little notice. It was the fatal long haul, that has caused so many crimes against commerce, that was at fault. It cost more to stop and side-track than to make the continuous trip.

In 1872 the amount carried was 156,999 tons. This did not represent much in commercial value. But, this was only a minor part of its true worth. Imagine the condition had the slight sacrifice been made of maintaining the lateral canals for the past thirty-five years, with over 1,500,000 population added. These derelict canals would have been a treasure-trove to the inhabitants. An English author upon the subject expresses the idea perfectly when he states "that where canals do not pay, they pay by increasing the volume of trade."

The coal transported by lateral canals was 411,918 tons, sufficient to compel the roads to meet the cheap water rate. An instance on the Black River Canal, now used as a feeder to the Erie, illustrates what happened to the people of the lake region. The last station on the canal paid at retail three dollars a ton for coal; the town above, served by the railroad, paid five and a half per ton. The saving on freight, in thirty-five years, had the canals been the rate maker, would have amounted to more than a million and a half dollars yearly.

The waterways of the Iroquois were, from the nature of their distribution, natural waterways; while the Erie connected two termini.


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302 The freightage was the natural product of its own littoral. The demand for canals was so urgent that as early as 1768 it was designed to connect Oneida Lake and the Mohawk by the improvement of Wood Creek. In 1792 the legislature passed the act. To this day old wooden locks may be found upon Wood Creek. Central New York was the first stimulus to the canal system of the state. It paid even at that early date. It reduced the cost of transportation from $32 to $16 per ton on the cargo. This great reduction in price "actually doubled the intrinsic value of the lands and produce around our lakes." If the reader were able to see the insignificance of the little ditch of Wood Creek he could not realize the grand total of the result.

A few details will prove that the cheapening of carriage and the earning capacity of the canal was under-rather than over-estimated. The toll on a barrel of flour passing 100 miles was 52 cents and for a ton of goods passing the same distance was $5.75. The rapidity with which its earning capacity increased is not less remarkable. The capital stock of the western company was $232,000, which paid to the stockholders a dividend of 3 per cent, in 1798, 3.5 in 1813, 4.5 in 1815 and 8 per cent, in 1816.

The rights of this company were acquired by the state in 1820, for $151,000. The middle division cost $1,125,983. If we add to this double the amount for enlargement, the sum of $2,570,000 was


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Rh abandoned by the state, the result of an ignorant and weak constituency and an aggressive lobby who represented the powerful railways behind the movement. These canals will be rebuilt on a grander scale commensurate with the magnitude of the barge canal. Already some of the great inland lakes have applied for a renewal of the canals. The history of the lateral canals will insure a favorable response. Even then they will not be money-makers. They will make money for the state only in proportion to the trade developed. It is doubtful if the history of the country can parallel such useless destruction. From the amount of money squandered and the human

interests involved, it stands alone, not as an object of public plunder, but, worse than that, a colossal blunder.

In going over these old canals it appears among the marvels of time, how quickly they are disappearing. Stones of monolithic size are lying in heaps. Canals, like the Chemung, are simply weed grown ditches, Wooden locks have left scarcely a trace; ruin, measured by the hundreds of miles, disfigures and encumbers the earth.

The Genesee Valley was one of the most important of the subsidiary canals. During the year previous to its official abandonment the total movement of goods amounted to 96,000 tons, in a total of nearly a half million. In 1873, 132 tons of wheat and 245 tons of


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Works by Author:David Koresh
All works are unlicensed, the sermons would seem to be clear copyvio's. The Negotiation transcript, I am not sure if there some that would cover it or not. Jeepday (talk) 23:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Transcripts
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Works by Author:David Koresh
All works are unlicensed, the sermons would seem to be clear copyvio's. The Negotiation transcript, I am not sure if there some that would cover it or not. Jeepday (talk) 23:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


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Rh Amelia.—In which occupation she must have found it difficult to hold her inkstand.

Eulalia.—Thus did I acquire the rare collection of letters which I now possess. They are all picturesque, strange, and romantic. I never received from her an account of anything actual, so that I sometimes trembled for her reason. Her own situation, the birth of her infant, her sweet affection for her offspring, her joys, her hopes, and her maternal fears, were all treated as events of another world, from which she only expected to be liberated by the arrival of her husband. On her nuptial day she concluded the fairy-tale which you heard recited yesterday, almost in her own words, and which derives its chief interest from the unusual circumstances under which it was composed.

The company could not sufficiently express their astonishment at this statement; and Seyton, who had abandoned his place at the gaming-table to another person, now entered the apartment, and made inquiries concerning the subject of conversation. He was briefly informed that it related to a fairy-tale, which, partly founded on facts, had been composed by the fantastic imagination of a mind not altogether sound.

"It is a great pity," he remarked, "that private diaries are so completely out of fashion. Twenty years ago they were in general use, and many persons thought they possessed a veritable treasure in the record of their daily thoughts. I recollect a very worthy lady upon whom this custom entailed a sad misfortune. A certain governess had been accustomed from her earliest youth to keep a regular diary; and, in fact, she considered its composition to form an indispensable part of her daily duties. She continued the habit when she grew up, and did not lay it aside even when she married. Her memorandums were not looked upon by her as absolute secrets, she had no occasion for such mystery; and she frequently read passages from


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476 it for the amusement of her friends and of her husband. But the book in its entirety was entrusted to nobody. The account of her husband's attachment had been entered in her diary with the same minuteness with which she had formerly noted down the ordinary occurrences of the day; and the entire history of her own affectionate feelings had been described from their first opening hour until they had ripened into a passion, and at length become a rooted habit. Upon one occasion this diary accidentally fell in her husband's way, and the perusal afforded him a strange entertainment. He had undesignedly approached the writingdesk upon which the book lay, and, without suspicion or intention, had read through an entire page which was open before him. He took the opportunity of referring to a few previous and subsequent passages, and then retired with the comfortable assurance that it was high time to discontinue the disagreeable amusement."

Henrietta.—But, according to the wish of my friend, our conversation should be confined to good women; and already we are turning to those who can scarcely be counted among the best.

Seyton.—Why this constant reference to bad and good? Should we not be quite as well contented with others as with ourselves, either as we have been formed by nature, or improved by education?

Armidoro.—I think it would be at once pleasant and useful to arrange and collect a series of anecdotes such as we have heard narrated, and many of which are founded on real occurrences. Light and delicate traits which mark the characters of men are well worthy of our attention, even though they give birth to no extraordinary adventures. They are useless to writers of romance, being devoid of all exciting interest; and worthless to the tribe of anecdote-collectors, for they are for the most part destitute of wit and spirit; but


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