"Oyster City," Yaquina Bay, Oregon.
As the result of an application through official sources, re-enforced possibly by the results of a biological survey made by this department during the preceding summer, twenty-two barrels of Eastern oysters were, on November 7, 1896, deposited on a portion of Oysterville Flat, so called, in Yaquina Bay, Oregon, seven miles and a half from the ocean. The oystermen of that section have agreed to abstain from tonging for native oysters upon the portion of the flat thus reserved until sufficient time has elapsed to justify an opinion as to the result of the experiment. These introduced oysters were of two varieties—the long, slender East Riversand the more oval, fan-shaped, and ribbed Princess Bays. Their journey of twelve days across the continent, in sugar barrels, from New York to San Francisco and thence to Oregon without water did not cause the mortality one might expect, for in strewing them over the bed from the scows of the oystermen very few dead individuals were observed—certainly not one half of one per cent.
An Experimental Spawning Float.
This alien oyster has much to contend with here. It was realized that the cold and salt water rushing in from the Pacific—colder and salter by far than in their Atlantic home at the same time—if it did not entirely prevent spawning would at least make the survival of the young embryos a matter of doubt; yet it was hoped that perhaps, after a number of years, the oysters might become acclimated, as it were, and their spawn, inheriting their parents' acquired hardiness, we might present to the people of the State a new form of Oregon product in the shape of Eastern oysters hatched and grown in the waters of this bay. Notwithstanding the fecundity of this oyster, a female producing in the vicinity of sixty million eggs at a spawning, it must be remembered that even under the most favorable conditions in its own home, where the water has in summer a fairly constant temperature of over 70° F. and a salinity of 1.012 on an average, but a very small proportion of this multitude survive. How much more unlikely is its survival in the waters of Yaquina Bay, Oregon, where the writer has seen the water change from a temperature of 70° F. and a saltness of 1.012 to a temperature of 55° and a salinity of 1.022 within six hours! It was to save the young embryos from exposure to these and kindred dangers that I, as a volunteer employee of the UnitedStates Fish Commission during the summers of 1897 and 1898, among other things resorted to the artificial fertilization of the eggs in a temporary laboratory, carrying the delicate embryos to the swimming stage and dumping them by thousands into the bay. Given some clean crocks, a microscope, dissecting instruments, tumblers, rubber tubing, thermometers, and instruments to test the saltness of the water, and innumerable embryos can be cared for without much trouble. The process, as practiced by Brooks, Ryder, Nelson, and others in America, is too well known to need repeating here. Its efficacy is well established, and, in spite of the incredulity of the oystermen, who wished to see the oysters spawn "spontaneous," as they expressed it, an incredulity amounting almost to opposition, the writer has persevered in this work for two seasons and intends to continue it the coming summer.
1, native oyster spat on clam shell; 2, same on inside of oyster shell; 3, 4, 5, native spat (Ostrea lurida) on Eastern oyster shells; 6, showing size and appearance of native spat one or two months old.
The native oyster of this Northwest coast (Ostrea lurida), smaller and by many preferred to its Eastern congener, while it is far less fruitful in its spawning than the latter, retains its young within the parent shell until long after they have passed the tender stages, when they leave the mantle cavity of the parent to swim for themselves. This oyster could rightly be called viviparous, while the Eastern oyster is oviparous. On account of its nurse-acting proclivities this West-coast oyster has an immense advantage here over the introduced species. The latter's eggs have to run the following gantlet: (1) Not meeting with a fertilizing cell and perishing in consequence; (2) sinking, before or after fertilization, in the fatal mud; (3) being eaten by small fish and other minute animals;(4) being killed by sudden changes in the temperature and density of the water. Artificial fertilization and the rearing of the embryos in the laboratory largely eliminate these dangers. We have adopted other methods to insure success. A few of the oysters were removed from the Government plant and deposited two miles farther up the bay, nine miles and a half from the ocean, where it was thought the water was warmer, less salt, and less variable than on Oysterville Flat. Some, during the breeding season, were placed on spawning floats and anchored near the shore, where the shallow water is thoroughly warmed by the sun. It was in one of these floats that the oystermen had an opportunity to see the oysters spawn "spontaneous," for the water therein, reaching 70° F., became milk-white with spawn or milt within an hour after the oysters had been taken from the plant. This was really our first proof that the introduced oyster would spawn here. Some wereplaced in sloughs adjoining the bay, with the hope that favorable conditions would be met with there. Others were placed in artificially constructed salt ponds somewhat after the style used by the French.
Eastern Oysters in Oregon.The lower row shows size when planted in 1896; the upper row represents their appearance in 1898.
What has been the outcome? The oysters, particularly the Princess Bay variety, have grown enormously and are in excellent condition. Until this spring no Eastern spat or young Eastern oysters had been discovered; this, of course, is the crucial point in the experiment; we know they will spawn, but will the spawn develop? Recently, much to our encouragement, a few young oysters, apparently of last summer's spawning, have been found and forwarded to Washington, proof positive that the oyster will propagate here, but not certain evidence of the practical outcome of the experiment. It is too early to predict results as yet; two years more are really required to tell the story.
For thirty years Eastern oysters have been shipped to San Francisco by enterprising firms of that city, planted there in the bay until a large size is attained, and then sold at an immense profit. These firms have always claimed that the Eastern oyster did not reproduce there. As far as can be ascertained from a reliable source, the shipments in recent years have rather increased than diminished, this fact being used as an argument to support the above statement. It is nevertheless a known fact that much Eastern spat and many adult oysters undoubtedly hatched there have been found by members of the United States Fish Commission and others. Moreover, with increasing trade one would naturally expect more shipments, even though the introduced oyster did propagate to some extent.
Ostrea lurida, the toothsome little native oyster which years ago was so abundant at Yaquina Bay, affording support to many families, has decreased in numbers to such an alarming extent that unless some radical measures are soon taken to prevent, the native oyster industry of this locality will be a thing of the past. This decrease in the size and numbers appears to be due to several causes. In the first place, there has been a very persistent tonging on a somewhat limited area. This might have been counterbalanced by proper precautions to insure a future supply, but, with characteristic lack of foresight, such precautions have been neglected, and the beds have been culled year after year, until the comparatively few oysters now marketed from Yaquina Bay are of very questionable size. Each oysterman has two acres of flats for private use. Three natural beds in the bay afford sources of supply for these private beds. The larger oysters tonged on the natural beds are marketed, and the smaller specimens spread onthe private ground referred to. Beyond strewing clean shells on these private beds, no provision is made to collect the swimming embryos during the spawning season, and multitudes must be carried away and lost. The writer has urged upon the oystermen the need of collectors of brush or tile, by the use of which the oysters which they have acquired may be largely increased in numbers, and will endeavor to demonstrate, by the use of tile collectors, that hundreds of young spat may be saved and raised to marketable age. Our native oyster structurally and physiologically resembles the European oyster (Ostrea edulis), and, like it, could be propagated in artificial oyster ponds. The practicability of such work on the West American coast depends, of course, on the market price of the resulting product as compared with the outlay required for labor.
By R. CLYDE FORD.
The Malay is an Oriental, and, of course, possesses a goodly number of superstitions and old wives' fables, but he does not hug them to his soul like some of the other peoples of the East—the Chinaman, for instance, who lives only by favor of gods, ghosts, goblins, and devils. The Malay lives in spite of spirits, good or bad, and tries to be a model Mohammedan at the same time. With bold assurance and positiveness, he puts his trust in Allah; but, after all, this does not keep him from cherishing, on the sly, a knowledge of a few uncanny, hair-raising beliefs any more than to be a devout churchman with us removes one from the occult influences of stolen dishcloths, overturned saltcellars, and the phases of the moon.
The Malay man'saberglaube—his superstition—is undoubtedly of ancient origin. For five hundred years or more he has said his prayers five times a day in response to the muezzin's cry ofAllah ho akbar, and his religion has penetrated the very life of his race and spread to the most distant confines of the archipelago, but it has never been able to remove entirely the heritage of that past when he was governed by Sanskrit gods or by deities of his own. Whatever he may have believed then and since changed, these fragments and relics of goblindom and superstition go back to that time, and so link on to all the weird love that prevailed in the ancient world. Another evidence of the primitiveness of Malay folklore may be seen in the fact that the inhabitants of the jungles andpadangsand the aboriginal dwellers of mountainsand dense forests cherish much more heathen notions and greater elaborations of everyday superstitions than the more enlightened and modernized Malays of towns andcampongs. In the East, as in the West, the man who lives close to Nature "holds communion with her visible forms," and likewise finds out, or thinks he does, a good deal about her invisible shapes.
The Malay has on his list of uncanny things the names of several spirits. Disease is everywhere a great dread of men, and often looked upon as an infliction of the supernatural powers. There are several spirits of sickness recognized among the Malays, but they reserve their greatest horror for the influences of theHantu Katumbohan, or spirit of smallpox. But other spirits abound; there are some that inhabit the sources of streams, and many that dwell in forests. Mines, too, have their patron goblins, which are propitiated by the miners. The sea-going Malay, also, whose vision has been clarified by bitter salt spray, knows and frequently sees the spirits that inhabit certain parts of the ocean.
TheHantu Pemburo, or phantom hunter, is a spirit the Malays take special account of; in general, he seems to resemble thewilde Jägerof German folklore. Long ago, so the story has it, there lived a certain man and his wife in Katapang, in Sumatra. One day the wife fell sick, and, thinking the flesh of a mouse-deer might strengthen her, she asked her husband to kill one for her. He went forth on the hunt, but was unsuccessful and soon returned. His wife now became very angry, and told him to try again—in fact, not to return till he could come home with the coveted game. The man swore a mighty oath, called his dogs, took his weapons, and set out into the forest. He wandered and wandered, and always in vain. The days ran into months, the months became years, and still no mouse-deer. At last, despairing of finding the animal on earth, he ordered his dogs to bay the stars, and they sprang away through the sky, and he followed. As he walked with upturned gaze, a leaf fell into his mouth and took root there.
At home things were not going well. His son, born after his departure, when he became a lad, was often taunted by the other children of thecampong, and twitted of the fact that his father was a wandering ghost. After hearing the truth from his mother, the boy went out into the forest to meet the huntsman. Far from the haunts of men, in the depths of the forest, they met and conversed. The boy told of his wrongs, and the father vowed to avenge them, and ever since that time, say the Malays, he has afflicted mankind. At night he courses through the wood andsky with a noisy, yelping pack, and woe to the man who sees him! On the peninsula the people mutter this charm to ward off his evil influence:
"I know thy history,O man of Katapang!Therefore return thouTo thy jungle of Mohang,And do not bring sickness upon me."
"I know thy history,O man of Katapang!Therefore return thouTo thy jungle of Mohang,And do not bring sickness upon me."
The Malay is a firm believer in the efficacy of charms. He wears amulets, places written words of magic in houses, and sports a tiger's claw as a preventive of disease. If he is specially primitive and backwoodsy, when he enters a forest he says: "Go to the right, all my enemies and assailants! May you not look upon me; let me walk alone!" To allay a storm he says: "The elephants collect, they wallow across the sea; go to the right, go to the left, I break the tempest." When about to begin an elephant hunt, according to Thompson, he uses this charm: "The elephant trumpets, he wallows across the lake. The pot boils, the pan boils across the point. Go to the left, go to the right, spirit of grandfather (the elephant); I loose the fingers upon the bowstring."
The Malay believes in witches and witchcraft. There is the bottle imp, thePolong, which feeds on its owner's blood till the time comes for it to take possession of an enemy. Then there is a horrid thing, thePenangalan, which possesses women. Frequently it leaves its rightful abode to fly away at night to feed on blood, taking the form of the head and intestines of the person it inhabited, in which shape it wanders around.
Such beliefs may perhaps have their origin in metempsychosis, which in other ways has some foothold among the common people. For instance, elephants and tigers are believed sometimes to be human souls in disguise, and so the Malay addresses them as "grandfather" to allay their wrath and avoid direct reference to them. Crocodiles also are often regarded as sacred, and special charms are used in fishing for them. One such, given by Maxwell, is as follows: "O Dangsari, lotus flower, receive what I send thee. If thou receivest it not, may thy eyes be torn out!"
The domestic animals also figure in Malay folklore. Dogs are unlucky and regarded with suspicion, for they would like to lick their master's bones. Cats, on the other hand, are lucky, and show a fondness for their owners.
Owls are regarded as birds of ill omen, and their hooting forebodes death.
Days are lucky and unlucky. Monday, Wednesday, and Fridayare fortunate birthdays, and a dream on a Thursday night will come true. To dream of a dog or a flood is unlucky. To stumble when starting on a journey is a bad sign, and before setting out on a pilgrimage to Mecca certain formulas are muttered and signs followed.
The Malay hates to tear down a house, and so the old one is left standing when a new one is built. The ladder of a house must be built just so, or disaster comes to the owner or builder; and to knock one's head on the lintel is regarded as unfavorable. One rises quickly from a meal; otherwise, if he is single, he may be regarded with disfavor by his prospective father-in-law.
As one travels over the archipelago he finds that superstitions vary, and what may be regarded by the Malays of the peninsula as particularly ominous may have no meaning at all with the Malays of the south or east. The Dyaks of Borneo are probably the most uncivilized of all the Malay tribes, for Mohammedanism has taken but little hold upon them, and their natural paganism remains as yet unshaken. Of their folklore we know but little. It awaits the conquest of the West, like the island itself.
By ERNEST A. LESUEUR.
It is so common a notion nowadays that electricity had its birth and rise in the nineteenth century that it gives one a strange mental sensation to contemplate the fact that all the myriads of commercial applications that have of late years been developed in this field might have been made by the Chinese or the ancient Egyptians, so far as the potentiality of Nature for developing electrical phenomena is concerned. The writer used to know a delightful old gentleman in Vermont who once referred, as to a well-known fact, to Edison's having invented electricity. It is astonishing how closely his state of mind typifies that of a great many people.
In the form of the lightning, the aurora, and the shock of the electric eel or torpedo, electrical manifestations have been known ever since man commenced to observe those phenomena, but the fossil resin amber was the substance which eventually gave its name to the now tremendous agency. This material was observed, many centuries before our era, to possess the property of attracting light bodies to itself when rubbed with wool, and, being called ἤλεκτρον (electron) by the Greeks, transmitted its name to the property or force which it thus brought into evidence. The fact is mentioned asearly as 600B. C., by Thales of Miletus, although he does not transmit to us the name of the original observer of the phenomenon. Homely as was the experiment, it marked a beginning in electrical research.
Not that scientific investigations in that or any line were pushed very assiduously in those days, for there is a great gap between the discovery of the property above alluded to and the acquisition of any more solid knowledge pertaining to electricity. The phenomenon was at that time set down in the list of natural facts, and no attempt appears to have been made to connect it with others. The inquiring spirit of the present age can hardly be brought into more striking relief than by a comparison of the, at present, almost daily advances in scientific knowledge with the fact that twenty-two hundred years elapsed between the discovery of the above-mentioned power of amber by the ancients and the later one that a very large number of other substances, such as diamonds, vitrefactions of all kinds, sulphur, common resin, etc., possess the same property. A few other scattered facts were, however, also noted by the ancients: fire is said to have streamed from the head of Servius Tullius at the age of seven, and Virgil asserts that flame was emitted by the hair of Ascanius.
In examining, now, the history of the rise of electrical science we find, as just mentioned, the vast gap of over two millenniums between the discovery of the attracting power of rubbed amber and the mere extension of man's knowledge so as to include other substances. The philosophers Boyle and Otto von Guericke, who were active during the latter half of the seventeenth century, added a mass of new data in this line. Boyle, moreover, discovered the equivalence of action and reaction between the attracting and the attracted body, and that the rubbed amber or other "electric" retained its attractive powers for a certain period after excitation had ceased.
Otto von Guericke made a vast step forward by constructing the first electrical machine, in a crude form, truly, but which proved of the utmost service in adding to our knowledge of the properties of electricity. His machine was constructed very simply of a globe of sulphur mounted on a spindle, which could be rotated by means of a crank; the operator applied friction with the hand, his body receiving a positive charge, while the surface of the sulphur acquired a negative. The fact of the two electrifications being separated at the surface of the sulphur was not, however, known at the time; the only charge that Guericke observed being that appearing on the sulphur. The reason for this was that the latter, being a nonconductor, any electricity generated upon it was compelled to stay there,for a certain time at least, and consequently accumulated so as to be observable; whereas the opposite electrification flowing into the operator's hand continuously escaped to earth without giving any sign of its presence. Had the operator stood upon an insulating support, the electrification would have accumulated on his body as well as upon the sulphur. Guericke made the discovery that a light body, having been once attracted to an electrified surface, was almost immediately repelled from it, and could not be again attracted without having its imparted electrification removed by contact with an uncharged surface.
Sir Isaac Newton, about 1675, made an interesting application of a principle allied to this. He used a hollow, drum-shaped contrivance with glass ends and a very short axis, into which he put a number of fragments of paper. On briskly rubbing the outside of the glass with a piece of silk the paper was caused to "leap from one part of the glass to another and twirl about in the air." This was repeated in 1676 before the Royal Society, to the great edification of that learned body.
Newton made a considerable improvement in the electrical machine of Guericke by the substitution of a hollow globe of glass for Guericke's sulphur one. What is chiefly interesting about the improvement is the fact that Guericke's sulphur globe, of comparative weight and cumbrousness, was made by casting melted sulphur into a glass globe and then breaking off the glass. Guericke observed in the dark a peculiar luminosity of conducting surfaces when well charged by means of his machine; he compared it to the phosphorescent light observed when lump sugar is broken in the dark. It was what is now known as the brush-discharge effect.
In 1705 Francis Hawksbee discovered the peculiar phenomenon which he termed the mercurial phosphorus. It was produced by causing a stream of well-dried mercury to fall through an exhausted glass receiver. The friction of the particles of mercury against the jet piece and the glass caused an electrification which evinced itself in a phosphorescent glow. The receiver, indeed, had not to be by any means thoroughly exhausted, the phenomenon occurring at an air pressure up to about fourteen inches of the barometer.
The crackling noise and the spark accompanying electrical discharge suggested about this time the analogy of those miniature disturbances to thunder and lightning, but the identity of the two was not fully established until later.
Up to this time the fact that certain substances were capable of conducting electricity was not known, but in 1729 Stephen Gray, F. R. S., an enthusiastic investigator, made the discovery, and at the same time the cognate one that a large class of materials arenonconductors. The only source of electricity which was at the disposal of experimenters up to this time was the electrical machine, improved, as described, by Newton, which furnished intermittent currents (discharges) of infinitesimal quantity, as we should say now, but of extremely high pressure. This fact of the enormous pressure resulted in the electricity's forcing its way through very imperfect conductors, so as to cause our investigators to rank many of these latter with the metals. Thus Gray concluded that pack thread was a good conductor because it did not oppose sufficient resistance to prevent the flow of his high pressure (or, as we should now say, high voltage or tension) electricity. He tried wire as well, but did not realize it was a better conductor than the thread, although its conductivity was actually in the millions of times as great. In collaboration with his friend Wheeler he conveyed electrical discharges a distance of eight hundred and eighty-six feet, through presumably air-dry pack thread—an achievement which would almost be notable at the present time. He insulated the line by hanging it from loops of silk thread.
Gray hoped "that there may be found out a way to collect a greater quantity of electric fire, and consequently to increase the force of that power, which,si licet magnis componere parva, seems to be of the same nature with thunder and lightning."
About this time Desaguliers discovered that those materials which, upon being rubbed, develop electrical charges, are all nonconductors, and that, conversely, nonelectrics are conductors. The terms electrics and nonelectrics were applied to bodies respectively capable and incapable of excitation; the words idioelectrics and anelectrics were also used in respectively equivalent senses.
In France, Dufay discovered that the conductivity of pack thread was greatly improved by the presence of moisture, and he succeeded in conveying a discharge a distance of almost thirteen hundred feet. He suspended himself by silken cords and had himself electrified, and then observed that he could give a shock accompanied by a spark to any person standing on the ground.
He also established the fact of the two opposite kinds of electrification, and gave them the names of vitreous and resinous, from the fact that the former was developed by the excitation of glass and vitreous substances generally, and the latter from that of amber and resins. He observed that the distinguishing characteristic of the two was the fact that opposite charges attracted each other, while similar ones exerted mutual repulsion. Dufay and Gray died within three years of each other, both at the age of forty, Gray having added to the results already mentioned the discovery of the conducting powers of certain liquids and of the human body.
Experimental research now began to spread into Germany and the Netherlands. The electrical machine was greatly improved by Professor Boze, of Wittenberg, and Professor Winkler, of Leipsic, who respectively added the prime conductor and the silk rubber to that important piece of apparatus. A Scotch Benedictine monk of Erfurt—Professor Gordon—substituted a glass cylinder for the sphere, and thereby brought the instrument in its essentials practically to the form in which it exists to-day. The improvement enabled the production of very large sparks, which were caused to produce the inflammation of various combustibles. Gordon went so far as to ignite alcohol by means of a jet of electrified water.
We now come to an epoch-making discovery—that of the condenser, or, in its conventional laboratory form, the Leyden jar. Professor Muschenbroeck, of the University of Leyden, was struck with the idea that it would be a good plan to try to prevent the dissipation of the electric charge by inclosing the conductor containing it in an insulating envelope. He therefore took a glass jar, partly filled it with water, and electrified the latter. His assistant, who was holding the bottle, accidentally touched the wire which made connection with the water, and received on the instant a shock much more violent than any that the electrical machine was capable of giving. This led to the discovery that as the charge of vitreous electricity had accumulated in the water, a corresponding charge of the opposite kind had gathered upon the outside of the glass and been "bound" there, as it is called, by the attraction exercised upon it by the charge on the inside. It had been enabled to get upon the glass by the fact of the assistant's hand having covered part of the surface of the latter, and, since he stood upon the ground, the electricity had quietly flowed from the latter up through his body to the outside surface of the glass.
The apparatus was quickly perfected by coating both the inside and outside of a jar with tin foil, applying the charge by means of a wire or chain to the inside coating and allowing the outer one to stand upon the earth or upon a conducting substance in electrical contact with the latter. The exaltation of spirit with which the discovery was hailed by thesavantsappears to have been extraordinary—one student who took a discharge through his body being reported to state that he would not have missed the experience for a fabulous consideration, and that he would not repeat it if it were to save his life. In reality the advance was enormous; it gave a means for literally bottling up electricity in quantities previously unthought of. The prime conductor of an electrical machine could not retain any considerable quantity of electricity for the reason that, a certain small intensity of electrification having been reached,the addition operated to upset the balance, so to speak, and the electricity escaped by a sudden (disruptive) discharge, or spark, or by the brush discharge already alluded to. With the Leyden jar, however, as fast as electricity was supplied to the inside coating it became "bound" there by the charge of opposite sign accumulating on the outside, and the limit of capacity of the jar was simply one of strength of the glass: if too much electricity was supplied, the stress of mutual attraction between the two charges relieved itself by destroying the jar.
Although Professor Muschenbroeck discovered the principle in the manner above referred to, it appears extremely probable that two other investigators, working independently, also did the same. One Cuneus and a monk named Kleist each claimed the honor of original invention of the condenser.
About 1747 the first gun was fired by electricity; this was accomplished by Sir William Watson, who also succeeded in kindling alcohol and gas by means of a drop of cold water and even with ice. The same experimenter reversed the ordinary procedure of causing the electric influence to pass from an electrified body to the one to be experimented upon, the latter being unelectrified, by electrifying the latter, and then producing the desired effect by approaching it to an unelectrified one.
A party of the Royal Society with Watson as chief operator instituted a series of researches on a grand scale to determine, if possible, the velocity of the electric discharge, and arrived at a number of conclusions which, however, were of a decidedly negative nature. The most important of these were as follows: That they could not observe any interval between the instant of applying the discharge to one end of the line and its reception at the other; that the destructive effects of discharge are greater through bad conductors than through good ones; that conduction is equally powerful whether occurring through earth or water.
Just previous to this there had been some brilliant experiments carried on in France, and the discharge had been conveyed through twelve thousand feet of circuit, including the acre basin of the Tuileries, but they had not been performed as systematically, or with the definite objects in view, as had the English experiments.
The following year the Royal Society continued its researches on a larger scale than previously, using 12,276 feet of wire, and found that even through that length the velocity was practically instantaneous.
Watson urged as a theory that electrical disturbances were caused by influx or efflux of a single electric fluid from the state of normal electrification, thus differing from Dufay in his opinion as to theexistence of two fluids. He was led to this belief by observing that he obtained a larger spark between two oppositely electrified bodies than from either to the earth.
From this time on there appears upon the scene a host of workers in this field, one of the most prominent being the distinguished American, Benjamin Franklin. Somewhat previous to his remarkable work, or about 1750, Boze made certain discoveries in the matter of the surface tension of conducting liquids being diminished by electrification, and Mowbray and Nollet ascertained that the vegetation of flowers and of vegetating seeds was hastened by electrifying them.
Franklin (born 1706, died 1790) made the important discovery of the active discharge of electricity from an electrified body by points as well as the converse of it—i. e., that electricity was rapidly abstracted from a charged atmosphere by points. This enabled him to increase the efficiency of the electrical machine by adding a comb-shaped series of points to the collector of the prime conductor.
Up to this time, although the identity of lightning with electricity had long been suspected, it had not been at all established, and to Franklin may be said to belong the honor of doing so, although in this, as in the case of the invention of the Leyden jar, there appears to have been successful contemporaneous research elsewhere. Before performing his great experiment Franklin published a book strongly supporting the belief in the identity of the two. Once having conceived the idea of drawing electricity from the upper atmosphere, he unfortunately lost some time through waiting for the completion of the spire of a certain church in Philadelphia, from the top of which he hoped to be able to collect electricity by means of a wire, but finally hit upon the device which now fills much the same place in connection with his memory that the classical cherry tree does with Washington's—the lightning-collecting kite. This apparatus was very simply constructed, and had a pointed wire projecting a short distance above the framework. It was controlled, and electrical connection made, by an ordinary string which terminated in a short length of silk ribbon to protect the person from possible injury, and to give electricity a chance to accumulate in the system, by insulating the "line." At the end of the string proper Franklin fastened a metallic key. In company with his son he flew the kite during a thunderstorm which occurred in June, 1752; for some time no electric disturbance approached the neighborhood, and he was on the point of abandoning the experiment when he observed what he had been waiting for—the outer fibers of the string standing out from the latter by repulsive force—and, applying his knuckle to the key, he drew a spark. Subsequently, when the rain soaked the string and caused it to conduct much better, there was a fine supplyof electricity, and Franklin charged a Leyden jar from the key, thus achieving the actual storage of "lightning."
He continued his investigations in atmospheric electricity, and discovered that the electrification of the clouds (or of the upper atmosphere) was sometimes positive and sometimes negative. The invention of the lightning rod is due to him.
Franklin sided with Watson in his belief in the single nature of the electric fluid.
As intimated above, atmospheric electricity appears to have been collected independently about the same time in Europe, and certain very daring and dangerous experiments were performed there. One sad occurrence, as a result, was the death of Professor Richman, in St. Petersburg, in 1753. Richman, in company with a friend, Sokolow, was taking observations on an electroscope connected with an iron rod which terminated in the apartment and extended in the other direction above the roof of the building. During the progress of their experiments a violent peal of thunder was heard in the neighborhood, and Richman bent to examine the instrument. In doing so he approached his head to within a foot of the end of the rod, and Sokolow saw a ball of fire "about the size of a man's fist" shoot from it to Richman's head with a terrific report. The stroke was, of course, immediately fatal, and what we now know as the return shock stupefied and benumbed Sokolow. The unfortunate event served as a warning to other daring experimenters.
Canton, another prominent worker in this field, discovered that the so-called vitreous electricity was not necessarily always developed by the friction of glass, as had hitherto been believed to be invariably the case. By applying different rubbers to glass he obtained either positive or negative at pleasure. This at once disposed of the idea that one kind of electricity resided in certain bodies and its opposite in others. Canton also made the interesting discovery that glass, amber, rock crystal, etc., when taken out of mercury, were all electrified positively. He was thus enabled to make the improvement in the electrical machine of coating its rubber with an amalgam rich in mercury, which greatly enhanced its powers.
Among the numerous names now coming into prominence must be mentioned those of Beccaria, Symmer, Delaval, Wilson, Kinnersley, Wilcke, and Priestley.
The first named, Father Beccaria, was a celebrated Italian physicist who did most valuable work in connection with atmospheric electricity, and who published several classical works on that and allied subjects. Among these may be mentioned hisLettre del Elettricità, 1758, andExperimenta, 1772. He ascertained that water is not by any means a good conductor, as it had previously beensupposed to be, and, by using pure water, he caused the electric spark to become visible in it, a phenomenon capable of occurring only through media almost nonconducting. In these experiments he used thick glass tubes with wires led through the opposite ends, the latter being sealed, and the tubes filled with water. These were invariably shattered by the passage of the spark on account of the accompanying elevation of temperature, which caused expansion. He also established the facts that the atmosphere adjacent to an electrified body acquires electrification of the same sign by abstracting electricity from the body, and that the air then parts with its electricity very slowly. He advanced the theory that there is a mutual repulsion between the particles of the electric fluid and those of air, and that a temporary vacuum is formed at the moment of the passage of a disruptive discharge or spark.
Robert Symmer, in 1759, described some most entertaining experiments, making use of the opposite electrifications of superposed stockings of different materials or merely of different colors (the dye matters in the latter case causing differentiation). If, in a dry atmosphere, a silk stocking be drawn over the leg and a woolen one pulled over it, the two will be found, upon being removed, to be very powerfully electrified in opposite senses. If the four stockings of two such pairs be used and then suspended together, they will indulge in remarkable antics due to each of the silk stockings trying to attract both of the woolen ones, andvice versa, and, on the other hand, each of each kind repelling the other. The amount of electrical attraction and repulsion produced in this simple way in a dry atmosphere is remarkable. The experiment may also be performed with all silk stockings, one pair white and the other black.
Symmer advanced the theory of two fluids coexisting in all matter (not independently of each other, as had been previously supposed), which by mutual counteractions produced all electrical phenomena. His conception was that a body, positively electrified, did not exist in that condition because of the possession of a charge of a positive (as distinct from a negative) electric fluid which it had not held before, and did not hold in a normal state; nor that it possessed a greater share of a single electric fluid than it did in an unelectrified condition, as had been believed by Franklin and Watson, and by Dufay respectively; but that such a body contained both positive and negative electricities which, when the body behaved as "unelectrified," entirely counteracted each other, but which, on the other hand, caused a positive or negative charge to be evinced should either positive or negative electricity respectively preponderate.
Æpinus was the author of another notable theory, of which we must omit further mention for want of space.
Disjointed observations connected with animal electricity had been accumulating for many centuries. The first chronicled note that refers to the subject dates back to 676A. D.Whether or not entirely by chance, the Arabians named the electric eel, or torpedo, in a way that impresses us now as singularly felicitous,raad(the lightning). Toward the end of the last century Redi discovered that the shock was sometimes conveyed through the line and rod to the fisherman, and Kampfer compared the effects to those of electrical discharges. It does not appear, however, that the resemblance was actually believed to be more than accidental until Bancroft urged, in the last ten years of the eighteenth century, the view which was shortly proved. Investigation since has shown that several other aquatic animals possess this astonishing manifestation of vitality, notably theGymnotus electricus(Surinam eel), theTrichiurus electricus, and theTetraodon electricus. Humboldt gives an account of wonderful battles in South America between gymnoti and wild horses. In fact, the most expeditious method, if not the most humane one, of capturing these alarming creatures appears to be to drive horses into the pond inhabited by them, and to allow the eels to exhaust their strength by repeated electric discharges before endeavoring to bring them to land by other means.
Cavendish was one of the most noted experimental investigators in the electrical field during the latter third of the eighteenth century. His work was remarkably accurate, considering the lack of a proper equipment for taking observations incident to operations in those days. He computed the relative conductivities of iron and water as four hundred million to unity, and found that the addition of but one part of common salt to one hundred of water increased the conductivity of the latter a hundredfold. A twenty-six-per-cent solution of salt he found to possess only seven and one quarter times the conductivity of the extremely weak one mentioned. He also established the law that the capacity of condensers (of which the previously mentioned Leyden jar is an example) varies directly as the active area, and inversely as the distance separating the conducting surfaces. It was reserved for later investigators to make the grand discoveries which relate to electrochemical dissociation, but Cavendish succeeded in accurately determining the ratio of combination of the elements of water in a method which superficially suggests the inverse of electrolytic decomposition—i. e., by inducing the combination of hydrogen and oxygen by the electric spark in the instrument known as the eudiometer.
Hard on the heels of this work came news of Galvani's remarkable discovery (1790) of the fact that freshly amputated frogs' legs, on being touched along the lines of the muscles by dissimilar metals,were powerfully agitated. We can only speak of this discovery as the stumbling on to an isolated fact, for it was reserved for Volta to establish the generalization that a current is produced in the conductor joining dissimilar metals when the latter are both in contact with a suitable electrolyte (or liquid capable both of conducting electricity and of acting on one, and incidentally also sometimes both, of the metals). Meantime (Du Bois-Reymond observes), "wherever frogs were to be found, and where two different kinds of metal could be procured, everybody was anxious to see the mangled limbs of frogs brought to life in this wonderful way. Physiologists believed that at last they should realize their visions of a vital power, and physicians that no cure was impossible."
Volta first discovered merely the fact of electrification by contact. He wrote to Galvani: "I don't need your frog. Give me two metals and a moist rag, and I will produce your animal electricity. Your frog is nothing but a moist conductor, and in this respect it is inferior to my wet rag!" Nobili, nevertheless, in 1825 proved the existence of galvanic currents in muscles.
Later on Volta invented the "couronne des tasses" (crown of cups), thus at the same time adopting the general form of cell used, with modifications, to-day, and producing the higher electromotive force, or electrical pressure, consequent on the multiplication of the cells in a series battery.
Just before Volta's celebrated communication to the Royal Society, in 1800, Fabroni, of Florence, in discussing Galvani's phenomenon, went to the root of the matter by suggesting that the energy of chemical action was at the bottom of galvanic manifestations, and he was warmly upheld in this contention by Sir Humphry Davy, who, upon the publication of Volta's discoveries, constructed a most elaborate battery with which (apparently about 1806) he produced the arc light between carbon pencils.
In the year referred to, Davy published the results of a series of experiments of enormous significance, among other things of the isolation of the alkali metals, sodium and potassium, whose existence had hitherto not been dreamed of. The simple electrolytic decomposition of water had been accomplished by Nicolson and Carlisle in the last year of the eighteenth century. Sir W. S. Harris says: "A series of new substances was speedily discovered, the existence of which had never before been imagined. Oxygen, chlorine, and acids were all dragged, as it were, to the positive pole, while metals, inflammable bodies, alkalies, and earths became determined to the negative pole of the battery. When wires connected with each extremity of the new battery were tipped with prepared and well-pointed charcoal, and the points brought near each other,then a most intense and pure evolution of light followed, which on separating the points extended to a gorgeous arc." It was at first supposed that the galvanic or voltaic electricity was distinct from the so-called "frictional" or "ordinary" electricity.
A distinguished contemporary of Cavendish was Coulomb, the value of whose work in developing certain exceedingly important mathematical laws with regard to action at a distance, surface densities, and rates of charge dissipation can hardly be overestimated. His name was given to the torsion balance which, since his day, has been the standard instrument for measuring electric and magnetic attractions and repulsions. The importance of his work has since been recognized by the perpetuation of his name in connection with the unit of quantity of electricity, as that of Volta has been honored by its use, abbreviated (volt), to designate the unit of electrical tension or pressure.
Certain highly instructive and interesting data were accumulated about this time by Volta, Laplace, Saussure, and the renowned chemist Lavoisier, in connection with the subject of electrification produced when evaporation, and the liberation of gases and vapors in general from any cause, occurs. The liquid, solid, or mixture liberating the gas was contained in a metallic dish and the resultant electrification of the latter examined qualitatively. Volta's observations led him to conclude that the electrification was always negative, but Saussure demonstrated finally that its sign was dependent on the material of the dish. These experimenters covered, between them all, a somewhat extensive field, examining, among other things, the electrification resulting from the ebullition of various liquids, from the ordinary combustion of fuel, and from the decomposition of acids by metals to liberate hydrogen.
About the end of the first decade of the century Poisson attacked the phenomena of electricity analytically, and succeeded in demonstrating the right of electrical investigation to rank among the exact sciences. Of his most important mathematical propositions is one in which, assuming as a working hypothesis the existence of two mutually attracting fluids, he deduced formulæ covering the distribution of these fluids on the surfaces of two conducting spheres, in or out of contact.
A great deal of work was done during the end of the last century and the beginning of the present one on what is now known as pyro-electrification. The Abbé Haüy discovered that fragments of tourmaline crystal exhibited opposite electrifications on opposite extremities of their lines of cleavage. It is this crystal also which has unusually remarkable powers of polarizing light, and which, under electro-magnetic stress, suffers modifications of the latter property.Haüy investigated the field with much diligence, and succeeded in cataloguing a large number of natural crystals by the side of tourmaline. The subject was amplified later by Sir David Brewster, who added a series of artificial crystalline salts to the list of pyro-electrical materials, among them, notably, hydro-potassic (and sodic) tartrate. The property was found not always to reside on these substances, but to be developed by heating them. Brewster found that even powdered tourmaline exhibited opposite electrifications on the opposite extremities of each tiny particle, causing the latter to act, so far as attractions and repulsions went, as infinitesimal magnets.
Our rapid and imperfect survey has now brought us to the threshold of the great activity in electrical work elicited by the tremendous discovery, made by Professor Oersted, of Copenhagen, of the existence of the electro-magnetic field. It happens that two of the most amiable and estimable individuals that have ever devoted their lives to scientific research stand out in this connection head and shoulders above all other investigators—Ampère and Faraday, the latter sixteen years younger than the former and destined to long survive him.
By PHILIPPE GLANGEAUD.
It is often said that there are no rules without exceptions. We purpose to test the truth of this maxim once more. Fishes are made to live in water, but some of them pass the greater part of their existence in mud. Some even perch upon trees, thus competing with birds, whose kingdom is the air, and which are able, with the aid of their wings, to plunge into space and travel rapidly over considerable distances. Yet there are birds, deprived by Nature, which do not possess the wing characteristic of the feathered tribe, and are consequently, like the majority of animals, pinned to the soil.
Birds do not all have equal power of flight, which is closely related to the extent of the development of their wings. There exist all grades in the spread of wings between that of the condor, which is four times the length of the body, whereby the bird is able to rise to the height of nearly twenty-five thousand feet, and the little winglets of the auk, which are of no use to it. The penguins have still smaller wings, which are nothing more than short, flattened stumps, without proper feathers and covered with a fine, hairlike down which might be taken for scales.
Another group of birds exists, called appropriatelyBrevipennes,the wings of which are so poorly developed as to be wholly unsuitable for flight. As an offset and just compensation for this, their long and robust legs permit them to run with extraordinary speed. For that reason they have been called running birds, in distinction from other kinds that constitute the group of flying birds. Among them are some gigantic birds, and also some that have no visible wings on the outside of their bodies, and may therefore be properly called wingless.
The ostrich is a member of this group. With its bare, callous head and short bill, its long, featherless neck, and its massive body, supported by long, half-bare legs, ending in two large toes; its very short wings, formed of soft and flexible feathers; and its plume-shaped tail, it presents a very special appearance among the birds.
The nandous, the American representatives of the ostrich, have still shorter wings, which have noremigiaat all, and terminate in a horny appendage, and they have no tail feathers.
The cassowary and the emu also resemble the ostrich in many points, but their wings are still more reduced than those of the nandou. They are only slightly distinct, and can not be seen when the bird holds them close up to its body. In theApteryx, the name of which, from the Greek, means without wings, the organs of flight are hardly apparent, and consist simply of a very short stump bearing a thick and hooked nail. TheApteryx, which is also calledKiwi, a native of New Zealand, is the most singular of living birds. The neck and the body are continuous, and the moderately sized head is furnished with a long beak resembling that of the ibis. Having long hairs similar to the mustaches of cats at its base, it is different from the bills of all other existing birds in possessing nostrils that open at its upper point. Although theApteryxcan not fly, it runs very fast, despite the shortness of its legs, and can defend itself very effectively against assailants by the aid of its long-nailed and sharp-nailed feet. The tail is absent like the wings. The very pliant feathers are extremely curious, of the shape of a lance-head, pendent, loose, silky, with jagged barbs, and increase in length as they go back from the neck. The bird is of the size of a fowl, and when in its normal position stands with its body almost vertical, and carries the suggestion of a caricature—resembling, we might say, a feathered sack, with only a long-billed head and the claws projecting, and one beholding it feels that he is looking at some unfinished creature. It is a nocturnal bird, of fierce temper, and has become rare in consequence of the merciless war that is made upon it. Everything is strange about it, even the single egg it lays, which weighs about a quarter as much as its body.
Together with theApteryx, there lived in New Zealand a bird that reached the height of nearly twelve feet—theDinornis. It and thePhororhacesand theBrontornis, which have been recently exhumed in Patagonia, might be regarded as the giants of birds. This bird was known to the natives as theMoa, and lived in troops like the ostriches. Its organization was very much like that of theApteryx, from which it was, however, distinguished by its great size, long neck, and short beak. It seems to have had the aspect of an ostrich, with a feathered neck and no wings or tail. The feet of theDinornis, with their three large toes, were really enormous. Isolated fragments of its bones suggest very large mammals, rather than birds. The femur and tibia are larger than those of a bear, the tibia alone being about four feet long, and the thickness, in the narrowest part, of the width of a man's hand, while it was more than seven inches in the thickest part. The sternum, on the other hand, was small, convex, and longer than broad. The wing could not have been visible on the outside of the body, for the bones that constitute them are proportionally smaller than those of theApteryx. There was, therefore, a maximum reduction of the wing in this bird.
TheDinorniswas covered with a rich plumage, and this was doubtless what led to its destruction, women preferring its plumes to all other ornaments. The large number of bones which have been discovered in the alluviums, the caves, and the peat bogs of New Zealand authorize the thought that the island was once inhabited by a considerable number of these birds, which were able easily to repel the attacks of other animals by means of their big feet. But they could stand no chance against Nature's more terrible destroyer—man—who, when seeking the gratification of his taste and fancy, does not hesitate to exterminate whole species. The natives of New Zealand still recall the history of these singular birds; their extermination seems to have occurred about the time the island was visited by Captain Cook (1767-1778). Moreover, some of the bones collected in later years still had animal matter upon them. Even parts of the windpipe have been discovered, mixed with charcoal, and evidences of cooking have been found.
A near relative of theDinornis, which the Maoris regard as extinct, is theNotornis, of which only four living specimens have been found since 1842, the last one having been captured in the latter part of 1898.
The eggs of theDinorniswere very large, having a capacity of about a gallon and being equivalent to eighty hen's eggs. Still larger eggs than these, however, are known. In 1851 Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire exhibited, in the French Academy of Sciences,eggs of a bird coming from Madagascar that had a capacity of two gallons. Some specimens of these eggs may be seen in the galleries of the Paris Museum, and still larger eggs have been found. The museum in London has one with a capacity exceeding eleven quarts, or equivalent to two hundred and twenty hen's eggs, or more than seventy thousand humming birds' eggs. It was thought at first that the bird which laid these gigantic eggs was still living, for natives of Madagascar spoke of having seen a bird of colossal size that could throw down an ox and make a meal of it. Such, however, were not the ways of the bird called theEpiornis, which had no talons or wings, and fed on vegetable substances. The description by the celebrated traveler Marco Polo of a great flying bird of prey, called a roc, has no reference to theEpiornis. M. Grandidier has demonstrated that this bird no longer exists in Madagascar, and that if man ever knew it the stories with marvelous details which the savages hand down from generation to generation make no mention of it. We owe to M. Grandidier, M. Milne-Edwards, and Major Forsyth what is known of the history of this large wingless bird, which resembles theDinornisin several points. If its size was proportioned to that of its eggs it should have been twice as large as theDinornis. It was not, however, but constituted a family represented by very diverse forms and of variable size, though never much exceeding eleven feet. The head was similar in appearance to that of theDinornis, but the surface of the forehead was furrowed with wrinkles and cavities, indicating the presence of a crest of large feathers. A curious peculiarity was the opening of the Eustachian tube directly on the exterior. The cervical vertebræ are very numerous, while the sternum is much reduced. It is a flat bone, broad but very short, especially in the median part. The wing also has suffered a great regression, for it comprises only a thin, short rod, the humerus, and a small osseous mass representing all the other bones of the wing stuck together. TheEpiornishad no wings externally visible. The bones of the feet were, on the other hand, of considerable size, and indicate that the bird that possessed them was larger than theDinornis.
TheEpiornis, according to M. Milne-Edwards, frequented the borders of waters, keeping among the reeds along lakes and rivers, for its bones are found associated with those of turtles, crocodiles, and a small hippopotamus. It most probably nested in the low plains around lakes.
Just as theApteryxamong birds, and the bison and the beaver among mammals, so theDinornisand theEpiornishave been destroyed as man has extended his abode and his domination.
When we regard the fauna of Madagascar and of New Zealand we are struck by the great resemblance between them, from the points of view of their recent and ancient vertebrate fauna. These resemblances suggest the past existence of relations between these two lands now separated by a wide expanse of sea, and this agrees with geological observations.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from La Nature.
The description of Selous, in Men and Women of the Time, as "explorer, naturalist, and sportsman," is suggestive of the manner in which his career has been developed and his fame has grown. Beginning his active life as a mere hunter of big game in the wilds of South Africa, and known at first only as a sportsman, he has become recognized as one of the leading, most intelligent, and most efficient explorers of his time, and is accepted as the most eminent authority respecting what relates to the large and important region of Mashonaland.
Frederick Courtenay Selouswas born in London, the son of a father of Huguenot extraction and of a mother who, descended from the Bruces of Clackmannan, could count Robert Bruce among her ancestors, and was also related to Bruce, the Abyssinian traveler. He was taught at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, and then went to school at Rugby, where he distinguished himself by his activity, which was displayed in his high spirits and love of violent mischief and by his personal courage to such an extent that his schoolfellows wittily nicknamed him "Zealous."
Leaving Rugby when sixteen or seventeen years old, he spent two years in Switzerland and Germany, studying at Neufchâtel and Wiesbaden. His hardy activity seems to have been as marked in Germany as at Rugby, for it is recorded of him that he attracted some notice in the papers by jumping into the Rhine in winter after a wild duck which he had shot. He was not dressed for a swim, and, his great coat and top boots becoming filled with water, he had much difficulty in getting to shore with his game. His determination to achieve a career in South Africa by hunting and collecting specimens was apparently reached while he was still a youth, and at nineteen years of age he sailed from England, to land at Algoa Bay in 1871. Hunting was his object, as is substantially confessed in the title of his first book, A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa. The book won instant recognition as a story ofsport and a hunter's prowess, and was regarded in that light by the critics and the general public. The Royal Geographical Society, however, perceived other qualities in the story he had to tell, and gave him successively honorable mention, the Cuthbert Peake grant, and, in 1883, the Founder's Gold Medal, the highest honor it had to bestow.
Among the earliest testimonials paid by this society to the value, as yet not generally appreciated, of Selous's work was that given by Lord Aberdare, president, in his anniversary address, delivered in May, 1881, to the services rendered to geography in the regions west of Lake Nyassa by Mr. Selous, who had "hitherto been known as a mighty hunter of large game.... This gentleman, we learn, in 1878 penetrated for one hundred and fifty miles the unknown country north of the Zambezi, in the direction of Lake Bangweolo. He has since crossed in various directions the Matabele country south of the Zambezi, discovering two new rivers and defining the course of others which had previously been laid down from vague information." Selous's Notes on the Chobi, it appears, had already been published by the Geographical Society.
Mr. Selous has spent most of his time since he began his African wanderings in 1871, except for occasional visits to England, in traveling and hunting over that part of the African continent with which his name as an explorer is associated. In 1877 he and some companions penetrated into Matabeleland to hunt elephants. Relating the story of his wanderings in an address to the Royal Geographical Society in 1893, he described his experiences with fever and ague, the attacks of which began in Griqualand in 1872, but came on only when he halted anywhere a few days. North of the Zambezi he made several journeys among the Balongas, and spent a wretched rainy season, almost without equipment, on the Manica table-land, of the luxuriant vegetation of which, with sweet-smelling flowers after the rains, he gave a glowing description in his address. Interesting observations were made on some of the northern rivers. The curious phenomena of the steady rise of the waters of the Chobi and Machabi—an outlet of the Okavango—was observed from the first week in June till the last week in September, when the flood began to recede.
From 1882 the journeys acquired additional geographical importance, and Mr. Selous proceeded to rectify the maps of Mashonaland made by earlier travelers, taking constant compass bearings, sketching the courses of rivers, and fixing the positions of tributaries. The value of this work was made manifest in a magnificent large scale map of the country.
This map, which was published in 1895, was intended, first andchiefly, to illustrate the work done by Mr. Selous while in the service of the South African Company; and, secondly, to embody, as far as possible, the knowledge possessed of the entire region extending from Fort Salisbury to the northward as far as the Zambezi, and to the eastward as far as the lower Pungwe. Mr. Selous's manuscript originals, deposited in the map room of the Royal Geographical Society, comprise a compass survey, showing the routes during a year's employment in the service of the British South African Company, September 1, 1890, to September, 1891, on a scale of 1:255,000; a sketch map, showing the route of the Manika Mission from Fort Charter to Umtassa's and thence to the camp near Mount Wedza, and also the routes taken by Mr. Selous from the camp near Mount Wedza to Makoni's, Mangwendi's, Maranka's, and back to Makoni's, on a scale of 1:255,000; a sketch of routes from Umtali to Mapanda (Pungwe) and back, in 1891, on the same scale; a sketch of Mashonaland, showing tribal boundaries, on the same scale; a rough survey map of the countries ruled over by the Makorikori chiefs, for which a mineral concession had been granted to the Selous Exploration Syndicate, on a scale of 1:210,000; and about thirty sheets of manuscript maps and rounds of angles, utilized in the compilation of the first four maps of this list.
Although Mr. Selous did not determine latitudes or longitudes, his long-distance compass bearings enabled him to lay down a network of triangles connecting Fort Salisbury with Masikesi. These triangles included Fort Charter, Sengedza, and Mavanka's in the south, Mount Mtemwa in the north, and Mount Dombo in the east; and it turns out that the distance between Fort Salisbury and Masikesi, as resulting from this triangulation, differs to the extent of only about a mile from that obtained by careful astronomical observations made at the two terminal points. The greater part of Mr. Selous's compass bearings were taken during the rainy season, when the air was very clear and landmarks could be seen at great distances. Mr Selous's determinations of altitude were not so accurate, and those obtained with the aneroid were characterized by himself as "of little value."
During all of his twenty years' wanderings Mr. Selous represented in his address to the Royal Geographical Society, with the exception of a treacherous night attack made upon his camp by the Mashuku-Sumbwe, led by a few hostile Marotse, in 1888, he had never had any serious trouble with the natives. He had gone among many tribes who had never previously seen a white man, and was always in their power, as he seldom had more than from five to ten native servants, none of whom were ever armed. Mr.Selous's pioneer work began in 1889, when he conducted a gold-prospecting company through eastern Mashonaland. The journey took the party to the Portuguese settlements on the Zambezi, where those people were found to have a full appreciation of the richness of the gold region.
The British South Africa Company, or "Chartered Company," as it is sometimes called, was incorporated about the same time (October, 1889), with power to occupy and possess the large domains that constitute what is now called Rhodesia. The return of Mr. Selous to the Cape of Good Hope with the report of what he had observed had the effect of determining the company to speed its operations so as to anticipate the Portuguese. Mr. Selous entered the service of the company, and, although he was not yet an explorer in the scientific sense, the accurate memory of his early wanderings over the region enabled him to guide successfully the pioneer expedition that took possession of Mashonaland.
One of the sensational incidents of this campaign was the refusal of Lobengula to allow the pioneer force to use the road that led through Buluwayo, his capital, the only existing wagon road from the British frontier to the Mashonaland plateau. A new road was cut, under the guidance and superintendence of Mr. Selous, through four hundred and sixty miles of wilderness, the whole work being accomplished in two months and a half.
Among the chiefs who submitted to the British occupation after the seizure of Gonvola was Moloko, ruler of the country north of Manica, who made a treaty with Mr. Selous. After two years spent in various operations for opening up the country and securing treaties with the native chiefs, Mr. Selous returned to England in December, 1892, and put the narrative of his adventures to press, but was called back in August, 1893, returning at very short notice, on account of the threatening attitude of the Matabele chief Lobengula and the consequent risk of interruption in the development of the country. The tribes had risen against the assumption of the company to claim as a territorial cession what they had regarded as simply a grant of mining and exploiting privileges. Mr. Selous engaged actively in the campaign, in which he is credited with having fought with great gallantry by the side of the colonists, and was wounded while protecting some negroes who had been surprised by the enemy.
Returning again to Mashonaland, he reached there in time to witness a second outbreak of the natives, vexed by the triple plague of locusts, rinderpest, and the stringent regulations of the Chartered Company's government with respect to cattle. His own cattle were stolen, and he headed a company of volunteers that wentout to check the insurgents and protect the people who were still on their farms.
The fruits, in acquisition to geographical knowledge, of Mr. Selous's adventures and explorations are to be found, mingled with much about sporting and exciting incident, in his books: A Hunter's Wanderings in South Africa, already mentioned; Travel and Adventure in Southeast Africa (1893); Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (1896); and in lectures to the Geographical Society and periodical contributions concerning Mashonaland.
These books abound in observations on natural history, often constituting real contributions of new facts or new demonstrations to the science, usually occurring incidentally in the narrative of adventure, but sometimes given in more formal shape. The author avows that his conclusions respecting animals are drawn from personal experience of the beasts, and are not influenced in any way by the stories of old hunters, Dutch or native. Among these notices are original observations on the giraffe and its habits, notes on buffaloes and their disposition, and remarks on variations in the types of South African lions. Of this animal, while some authors would make three species, the author believes there is only one. "As out of fifty male lion skins," he says, "scarcely two will be found exactly alike in the color and length of the mane, I think it would be as reasonable to suppose there are twenty species as three." So in Notes upon South African Rhinoceroses, a paper read before the Zoölogical Society of London in June, 1881, and reprinted in this volume, Mr. Selous gives his reasons for affirming that there are only two species of rhinoceros in South or in all Africa—the square-mouthed or whiteRhinoceros simusand the prehensile-lipped or blackRhinoceros bicornis—while the supposedRhinoceros keitloa, or blue rhinoceros of the Boers, is merely a variety of thebicornis, the distinction between the two being based only on differences in the relative length of the horns. Another paper from the Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society, reprinted here, is Notes on the South Central African Antelopes, embodying again only the results of the author's own observations. In this paper twenty-two species are described by their scientific, native, Dutch, and English names, and their characteristics, habits, appearance, and distinctions are indicated.