C34°, 57′, 52″ N.D5h., 20m., 17.8s. W.
C34°, 57′, 52″ N.
D5h., 20m., 17.8s. W.
The first detachment, consisting of Messrs. Abbot, Fowle, Kramer (instrument maker) and Smith (carpenter), reached Wadesboro May 4th, and were soon joined by Messrs. Draper and Putnam. The latter returned to Washington after a short but satisfactory latitude and longitude campaign, reaching Wadesboro again just before the eclipse. Other members of the party reached camp on and after the middle of the month. The first comers found a very satisfactory shed already erected and piers begun. Not a day passed from the time of the arrival of the apparatus, May 7th, to the day before the eclipse, that was not fully occupied in perfecting the arrangements.
The most striking portion of the installation was the line beginning at the northwest pier, with its equatorial and cœlostat, continued from thence south of east by the two great diverging tubes of the 135-foot telescope and spectroscope. These tubes were covered with white canvas, presenting the appearance of two immensely prolonged ‘A’ tents, ending beyond the photographic house, where the 38-foot telescope tube pointed east and upward at an angle of 42° with the horizon. When the equatorial, with its large special conical tube camera, with all this long-branching extent of white canvas ending in the uplifted tube ofthe 38-foot telescope, was seen in the light of the moon, the extensive field with these preparations, exhibited a still more picturesque scene than by day.
Less imposing, and perhaps more ungainly was the combination of four great cameras under the main shed, designed to search for new planets and to depict the outer corona. These might well be described as like a cabin and outbuilding, mounted on a polar axis, yet, despite their awkward proportions, they were made to follow very accurately.
The morning of the eclipse dawned cloudless and very fairly clear. Deep blue sky, such as the writer had seen on Pike’s Peak, of course, is not among the ordinary possibilities of an eclipse, but the milkiness of the blue was less pronounced than is usual in the summer season, and all felt that the seeing promised well.
At fifteen minutes before totality a series of rapid strokes on the bell called every one to his post, and one minute before the expected contact five strokes were given as a final warning. Coincidentally with the actual observation of the second contact by Mr. Putnam, the first two strokes upon the bell sounded, and the work began. After 82 seconds (the duration of totality from the Nautical Almanac was 92 seconds), three strokes were given as a signal to stop the long photographic exposures. Scarcely more than five seconds after this the sun’s crescent reappeared. The duration of totality, as observed by Mr. Putnam, was approximately 88 seconds.
To visual observers the sky was notably not a dark one. No second magnitude stars were observed with the naked eye, and most of the on-lookers saw only Mercury conspicuously, though Venus was distinguished at a low altitude and Capella also was seen. So high a degree of sky illumination can not but have operated unfavorably in the study of the outer corona or in the search for intra-mercurial planets, and this is to be remembered in connection with what follows.
A deepened color in the sky, a fall of temperature and a rising breeze were distinctly noticeable. No change in direction of the wind was noted. Shadow bands were seen, but those who attempted to measure their velocity found them too rapid and flickering for any great exactness in this determination. There was tolerable unanimity among independent observers as to their size and distance apart (about five inches), though some thought this less as totality approached.
It was noticed that the birds grew silent just before and during totality, but true to their nature, the English sparrows were last to be still and first to begin their discussion of the eclipse, after the return of light.
The attention of all visual observers was at once caught by theequatorial streamers. Father Woodman’s comparison of the appearance of a structure of mother of pearl was generally recognized as good, but different observers differed on the color estimate. A yellowish green tinge was noted by the artist of the party, Mr. Child, while to others the light was straw colored or golden.
The general coronal form to the naked eye was nearly that of the smallannexed photograph, which, though taken by one of the smaller objectives, gives a good view of the relative intensities. The same extensions of the equatorial corona could be followed by the naked eye from 3 to 3½ solar diameters.
The visual telescopic observations of the writer gave little indication of the finely divided structure of the inner corona which he had noticed at Pike’s Peak. Structure, to be sure, was evident, but not in such minute subdivision as had then been seen, and though one remarkable prominence as well as several smaller ones was visible, the coronal streamers did not give to the writer the impression of beingconnected with these prominences, though the relationship of some of them to the solar poles was abundantly manifest.
Comparing notes after totality, all observers reported a successful carrying out of the programme. The greatest interest centers in the direct coronal negatives taken with the 135-foot telescope. Mr. Smillie exposed six 30 × 30 plates during totality, with times ranging from one half a second to sixteen seconds, and three others were exposed by him immediately after the third contact.
At this writing only a part of the negatives taken have been developed. Their general quality may be inferred from the examples here given, after due allowance for the great loss suffered by translation onto paper even with the best care.
Fig. 1. General View of the Corona. Taken with 6 inch Lens of 7½ feet Focus. 82 Seconds Exposure.
Fig. 1. General View of the Corona. Taken with 6 inch Lens of 7½ feet Focus. 82 Seconds Exposure.
Fig. 1is a view taken with one of the smaller objectives (6 inches), given here to afford the reader an idea of the general disposition of the coronal light. The upper part is the vertex in the inverted field.
Fig. 2. Prominences on Southwest Limb of Sun. Taken with 12 inch Lens of 135 feet Focus. 8 Seconds Exposure.
Fig. 2. Prominences on Southwest Limb of Sun. Taken with 12 inch Lens of 135 feet Focus. 8 Seconds Exposure.
Fig. 2is a portion of one of the great 15-inch circular images obtained with the 135-foot focus telescope. It was obtained in the great disc in the last exposure during totality of 8 seconds, showing one of the principal prominences then on the sun’s disc, with the disposition of the lower filaments near it.
Fig. 3. North Polar Coronal Streamers. Taken with 15 inch Lens of 135 feet Focus. Exposure 16 Seconds.
Fig. 3. North Polar Coronal Streamers. Taken with 15 inch Lens of 135 feet Focus. Exposure 16 Seconds.
Fig. 3is a portion of one of the same set of plates, but taken with a 16-second exposure. The part near the sun has, of course, been intentionally over-exposed, in order to better exhibit the remarkable polar streamers, extending here to a distance of about six minutes from the sun, but seen still further in Mr. Child’s telescopic drawing (not given.)
Fig. 4. Dark Room and Tubes of 135 foot and 38 foot Telescopes. 5 inch Equatorial in Foreground, Prof. Langley Observing.
Fig. 4. Dark Room and Tubes of 135 foot and 38 foot Telescopes. 5 inch Equatorial in Foreground, Prof. Langley Observing.
Fig. 4is a view of a small part of the great apparatus on the field, including the terminus of the horizontal tube with its canvas covering, which has been described as like an extended ‘A’ tent. The photographic room is seen at the end of the tube, and beyond that the tubecontaining the lens loaned by Professor Young pointing directly skyward.
That it will be impracticable to give here all of the disc of the moon in the large photographs, will be evident when it is considered that the lunar circumference on each plate is about 4 feet; but it will be inferred from the examples that the prominences and polar streamers as well as their features, appear in imposing magnitude and detail.
Many of what it is hoped will be the most interesting photographs still await development, but Mr. Smillie’s thorough preparation is promising adequate results.
Mr. Abbot, with aid of Mr. Mendenhall, appears to have measured the heat of the corona, and in spite of previous efforts, this is probably the first time that it has been really shown to exist. For five minutes before second contact, the bolometer was successfully exposed to the region of the sky close to the narrowing crescent of the sun where the corona was shortly to appear. A diaphragm was interposed in the beam having an aperture of only 0.4 sq. cm. Deflections, rapidly diminishing from 80 to 6 mm. were obtained, the last being about 40 seconds before totality. Then the diaphragm was opened to 290 sq. cm. and a negative deflection of 13 mm. was observed after totality, where these positive deflections had just been found, showing that the corona was actually cooler than the background which had been used at the room temperature. Next the black surface of themoon was allowed to radiate upon the bolometer, and the still larger negative deflection of 18 mm. was observed.
The important result was that the corona gave a positive indication of heat as compared with the moon.
This heat, though certain, was, however, too slight to be sub-divided by the dispersion of the prism with the means at hand.
The negatives taken to depict the outer corona show from three to four solar diameters extension for the longest streamers. The equatorial ‘wings,’ as they recede from the sun, are finally lost in an illuminated sky, without any indication of having actually come to an end.
No attempt to carefully examine the plates taken for intra-mercurial planets has yet been possible. It is, however, as has been remarked, doubtful if the very faintest objects will be found, in consideration of the considerable sky illumination during totality. However, Pleione in the Pleiades (a star of the 6.3 magnitude), is plainly seen on one of the plates, and some smaller ones are discernible.
On the whole, the expedition may be considered as promising to be very satisfactory in its results, and that it was so is largely owing not only to the efficient care of Mr. Abbot, but to the many gentlemen who have assisted me with the loan of valuable apparatus, with counsel, with voluntary service and with painstaking observation, to one and all of whom I desire to express my obligations.
EAbstract of a lecture delivered at the Medical Graduates’ College and Polyclinic, and printed in theLancetof May 19.
EAbstract of a lecture delivered at the Medical Graduates’ College and Polyclinic, and printed in theLancetof May 19.
Thislecture is devoted to a description of the parasite and of its life cycles. The existence of a parasite in malarial disease has been suspected for a long time, but only very recently have we had absolute assurance that such a parasite exists. Some time in the thirties Meckel described in the human blood certain black particles which he found in leucocytes and in certain pale, leucocyte-like bodies the nature of which he did not know. When he saw these bodies he certainly saw the malarial parasite. His observations were repeated and extended in the forties and the fifties by Frerichs and Virchow, and they, too, undoubtedly saw the malarial parasite. But it is one thing to see and quite another to recognize; discovery is recognition.
The discoveries of Laveran, Golgi, Marchiafava, Bignami and others resulted in considerable knowledge of the life history of the malarial parasite and of the correspondence between its life cycle and the clinical cycle of the disease. Laveran discovered the parasite; Golgi described the cycle of the tertian and quartan forms; the others added new data, especially concerning the more malignant parasites. The malarial parasite in its mature form has the appearance—I shall take the tertian parasite as a type—of a mass of pale protoplasm occupying practically the whole of the red blood corpuscles. Scattered through this mass of protoplasm are a number of black specks or little rods of intensely black pigment. Later in the life of the parasite a peculiar thing happens: all these little specks of black pigment concentrate usually towards the center of the organism whilst the pale protoplasm arranges itself into little spherules, the whole constituting what is known as the ‘rosette body.’ Later in the life of the parasite the surrounding blood corpuscle breaks away and this rosette body floats free in the liquor sanguinis and then breaks up into its constituent spores, setting free at the same time the black pigment clump. Phagocytes attack many of these free spores and probably absorb most of them, as well as the little pieces of pigment. The result is the pigmented leucocyte, so characteristic of malarial blood. A few of the spores escape and in virtue of some peculiar faculty, which is not at presentunderstood, enter fresh blood corpuscles and appear there as pale specks in the hæmoglobin. These pale specks, if watched in perfectly fresh blood, are seen to be possessed of very active amœboid movement. They throw out pseudopodia in various directions and wander about through the hæmoglobin of the corpuscle. After a time they increase in size by assimilating the hæmoglobin. By and by there appear somewhere in the parasite those specks of black pigment which we saw in the mature animal. Later they increase still further in size until they come to occupy half, and finally nearly the whole, of the blood corpuscle. Again there is concentration of pigment and the formation of little sporules. This is the cycle, as described by Golgi, of the tertian and quartan parasite. The cycle of the tropical or æstivo-autumnal parasite corresponds in plan almost exactly with that of the quartan and ordinary tertian parasite.
It was found that the life cycles of these parasites ran parallel with the clinical cycle of malarial disease. It was found that when the parasite had arrived at maturity the apyretic interval in an ague was about to conclude, and that when the parasite had arrived at the sporulating stage the patient had entered on the shivering stage of his fever. During that and the succeeding hot and sweating stage the spores had entered the red blood corpuscles, and when the parasite had ensconced itself in the red blood corpuscle and begun to grow, the fever had come to an end. It was found in tertian fever that the cycle of the parasite took forty-eight hours to complete, exactly the length of the cycle of the clinical phenomena. In quartan fever the cycle took seventy-two hours, exactly the length of the clinical cycle of that form of malarial disease. In the malignant or tropical fevers there was found to be a similar correspondence between the cycle of the parasite and the cycle of the disease. It was found that with each recurring paroxysm of fever there was a renewal of the life of the parasite, and that in this way the life of the parasite was continued from period to period and from cycle to cycle for weeks or even, especially in the case of quartan malaria, for months. Now this explains very well the way in which the malaria parasite contrives to maintain its existence in the human body, but it does not explain how it passes from host to host, neither does it explain certain appearances that Laveran and everybody else who has studied the subject have witnessed. In malarial blood you sometimes see that peculiar body, the flagellated body, which I have already alluded to as consisting of a sphere surrounded by from one to six or seven long tentacles or arms in a state of continual agitation. Neither does it explain the peculiar crescent-shaped body which also so pointedly arrested Laveran’s attention.... Golgi’s scheme leaves the passage of the parasite from host to host and also the nature of these two bodies unexplained. What relation havethese two bodies to the life of the parasite? Their nature and purpose do not receive any illumination from Golgi’s theory. You will find in all forms of malarial infection, if you look enough, the flagellated body; but, strange to say, you will not find it in malarial blood immediately after it is withdrawn from the body. It is only after an interval of minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, after the blood is withdrawn that these flagellated bodies appear. Whence do they come? If you make a preparation of malarial blood from a patient by pricking the finger and spreading a little of the blood on a slide, fixing it immediately with heat or alcohol and staining it, you will never see any of these flagellated organisms. But if the slip be kept moist and in a warm temperature for half an hour and then stained, the flagellated bodies will be seen, proving that they develop only after the escape of the parasite from the human body. Such a fact is very interesting and obviously has some significance in connection with the life of the parasite. Whence, I ask, come these flagellated bodies? If one of the crescent-shaped bodies is observed continuously, the following changes of shape may often be observed: It becomes shorter, loses its crescent shape and gives off flagella, which may break off and swim about by themselves. When they come in contact with a blood corpuscle they straighten themselves out and indulge in a peculiar vibratory movement, as if endeavoring to penetrate the corpuscle.
Many years ago King, in America, and others too numerous to mention suspected that the mosquito had something to do with malaria, but in what way they could not say. Not only civilized observers had this suspicion, but the savage natives of certain tropical countries had the same idea. Koch tells us that certain natives of German East Africa who lived in a mountainous, and therefore non-malarial, part noticed that when they descended to the malarial regions on the coast they acquired a fever which they called ‘mbu.’ They said that they were bitten there by certain insects which they also called ‘mbu’—mosquito or gnat. They give the same name to the mosquito and to the fever, therefore obviously these savages associate the insect and the fever as cause and effect. Peasants in certain parts of Italy have the same idea, believing that the bite of the mosquito may be followed by the development of malarial fever.
Laveran, some years ago, in one of his numerous works on malarial fever, said that possibly the malarial parasite was cared for by the mosquito in the same way that the latter cares for the filaria of the blood. He did not, however, formulate a definite theory on the subject.
In 1894 I was engaged in working at malaria, following out Golgi’s work and that of other Italians. I was particularly struck by the phenomena of exflagellation and more particularly by the fact that itoccurred only when the blood had been removed from and was outside the human body. I reasoned that if this exflagellation occurs only outside the body, the purpose of the flagellated body must lie outside the human body, and that therefore the flagellated body must be the first phase of the malarial parasite outside the body, must be the first step that the malarial parasite takes in passing from one human host to another. There seemed to me to be a sort of logic in this. But how was the malarial parasite to pass from one human being to another? It was not provided while inside the human body with any organs of locomotion or penetration; as far as we know the parasite is never extruded in the excreta, neither does it habitually escape in hæmorrhages. Therefore, the idea of a spontaneous escape of the parasite from the human body had to be dismissed. I therefore concluded that some extraneous agency must remove the parasite from the human body, so as to afford the opportunity for this flagellation which I had concluded must constitute the first step in its extra-corporeal life. In casting about for an organism which could effect this removal I, for many reasons similar in some respects to those that influenced the savage African, the Italian peasant, King, Laveran and others, came to the conclusion that the medium of removal and transit must be the mosquito. I was so impressed with the probabilities of this double hypothesis and with its extreme practical value, should it prove to be correct, that I endeavored to leave England for a time and to visit British Guiana or some such suitable malarial country where I might work out the idea. Unfortunately, that could not be accomplished, so I published my theory in the hope that it would appeal to someone who might enjoy the opportunities denied to me. At that time Surgeon-Major Ross was at home from India and we had many conversations on the subject. I described to him my hypothesis, the probabilities of which and the possibilities of which powerfully appealed to his highly logical and practical mind. He undertook, when he returned to India, to do his best either to establish or confute it. Accordingly he set to work in India experimenting with mosquitoes and malaria.
Ross was stationed in Secunderabad, in the south of India, where there was abundant opportunity for experimental work—plenty of patients and plenty of mosquitoes. He got patients with crescent parasites in their blood and he got mosquitoes to bite them. He found that in the course of a few minutes after the blood had entered the insects’ stomachs the crescent parasites proceeded to the formation of sphere and flagellated body. But he got no further. This experiment was repeated hundreds of times. Many of his preparations were sent to me, and I could confirm from them the accuracy of his statements on the subject. Ross was encouraged, for obviously we were on theright track. One day Ross, whose station had in the meantime been changed, caught some mosquitoes which had been feeding on a patient the subject of tertian malaria. He kept the mosquitoes and after a few days dissected them. He took the stomach out and placed it on a slip with a little salt solution, covered it with a cover-glass and examined it with a microscope. He was gratified to find lying amongst the transverse and longitudinal muscular fibres a number of spherical bodies, very sharply defined, and including a great many grains of intensely black pigment exactly like those of the malaria parasite. Ross was at once struck with the similarity. After years of labor he believed he had at last seen the malaria parasite in the tissues of the mosquito, where we reasoned it ought to be; and he was right. At a subsequent experiment on the malarial patient he found exactly the same bodies, and on dissecting several mosquitoes at different intervals of time he found that the parasite, which originally was six micro-millimetres in diameter only, grew to sixty or eighty micro-millimetres, each parasite, notwithstanding its growth and the lapse of time, still containing the peculiar and most characteristic black pigment. Ross was now quite sure that he had found the extra-corporeal phase of the malarial parasite. Some of these preparations he sent home. I examined them and showed them to a number of friends in London familiar with the malarial parasite; they agreed with me, as Laveran also did, in believing that probably this indeed was the long-sought-for extra-corporeal phase of the malarial parasite. Ross at that time had great difficulty in getting opportunities for experiment on the human subject and in procuring proper mosquitoes. He found that the mosquitoes in which he had discovered these pigmented bodies were of a different species to those on which he had formerly experimented, and that in this circumstance lay the explanation of his lack of success earlier as well as the secret of his ultimate success. Failing to get sufficient opportunity for experimenting on human malaria he turned to bird malaria. He found that the sparrow of Calcutta, in a large proportion of instances, contained in its blood a malaria-like parasite. Ross procured a number of infected sparrows and let loose upon them a number of mosquitoes of a species belonging to the genusculex. These mosquitoes, after from one to ten days, he dissected and examined their stomachs. He found in the stomach-wall pigmented bodies exactly similar to those which he found in the stomach-walls of mosquitoes fed on human malarial blood. He found that they increased in size and in a week or ten days grew from six to eighty micro-millimetres in diameter. When they became of considerable size they protruded like warts from the surface of the insect’s stomach and were included in a very definite capsule. At this stage the capsule was filled with a vast number of very minute rod-like bodies. These capsules, which now projected into thebody cavity of the insect, being over-distended, ruptured and discharged the rod-like bodies into the body cavity of the mosquito. For a time Ross could get no further than this. He could not find what became of the rod-like bodies. One day, in dissecting the head of a mosquito, he encountered two small trilobed glands the ducts from which united to form a main duct. The glands lay on either side of the head and the common duct he traced to the base of the proboscis of the mosquito. This was the salivary gland of the mosquito. He found that the cells of the gland contained rod-like bodies exactly like those which he had found inside the parasitic capsules in the stomach-wall. He concluded that somehow these ‘germinal rods’ (for so he called them) had managed to find their way into the salivary gland of the mosquito. It immediately occurred to him that this might be the route by which the parasite escaped from the mosquito into its vertebrate host. No sooner had the idea occurred to Ross than he put it to the test of experiment. He selected a number of sparrows in whose blood he satisfied himself that there were no parasites and let loose upon them a number of mosquitoes which he had already infected with malarial parasites. He found after a week or ten days that the sparrows which were experimented upon sickened and many of them died; and in their blood he found the malarial parasite.
We now understand why the flagellated body is developed outside the human host: because its function lies outside the human host. We now understand why the flagella break away and enter the granular sphere: they impregnate it and start it on the road of development. We now understand why MacCallum’s vermicule is beaked and endowed with powers of locomotion and penetration: that it may approach and penetrate the stomach of the mosquito. And we now know why the sporozooites, the ‘germinal rods,’ enter the mosquito’s salivary gland: that they may be injected into vertebrate issue and so pass the parasite from vertebrate to vertebrate.
This is one of those fairy tales of science which people are inclined to doubt, but any one who has worked at the subject and taken the trouble to go through the long series of preparations which have been sent home from India can not for a moment have the slightest doubt that what Ross stated was absolutely true, and that not only for bird but for human malaria. So soon as the idea got abroad that the key to the way in which the malarial parasite is propagated had been found the Italians immediately set to work with renewed vigor and with the utmost skill. Almost at once they demonstrated that what happened in the case of Ross’s sparrows happened also with the human subject: that the appropriate species of mosquito fed upon the human malarial subject and subsequently allowed to feed upon a non-malarial subject conveyed the malarial parasite and malarial disease, and that the appropriatespecies of mosquito belonged to the genus anopheles. There can not be the slightest doubt that the mosquito acts the part of transmitting agent as well as definitive host of the malarial parasite.
This is a piece of knowledge of the utmost importance to mankind, for we know that malarial disease in tropical countries—which, after all, in the future will be the most important parts of the world, seeing that they can produce more food than temperate countries and can therefore support a larger population—causes more deaths and more disposition to death by inducing cachectic states predisposing to other affections than all the other parasites affecting mankind put together. We know now in what way this parasite is acquired. Depend upon it, in time, in virtue of this knowledge, we will get enormous power over the disease and sooner or later we will be able to prevent the infection of man by the parasite. It is only a question of study and the application of the knowledge already acquired, only a question of money and perseverance and a little ingenuity, and these results will come. It may not be in ten years or twenty years, but sooner or later the energies of a considerable portion of scientific mankind now being expended in endeavoring to devise means for preventing the infection of men with the malarial germ by the mosquito will bear valuable fruit.
You can readily understand that it is of great importance to be able to recognize the special species of mosquito which convey malaria. The effective species as regards human malaria belong to the genus anopheles; species of the genus culex are effective in the case of sparrow malaria. Fortunately, these two genera are easily recognized even by the amateur zoölogist. If you find a mosquito clinging to the wall or other surface you can tell which genus it belongs to by its posture. If the body is stuck out nearly at right angles to the surface on which the insect is resting, it is an anopheles. If the body is almost parallel to the surface, it is a culex. There is another test which is easily applied if you have a pocket lens; in culex the two organs known as palpi are rudimentary and very short; whereas in anopheles those organs are almost as long as the proboscis. It should be remembered that the male mosquito is not a blood-sucker and therefore is not dangerous. It is the female anopheles which transmits the disease. The mosquito larvæ inhabit stagnant or slow-running water. If a mosquito larva be found with its head downwards, the body hanging at right angles to the surface of the water, it is a culex; if the body lies parallel to the surface of the water, it is an anopheles. There are other points of difference with which I need not now trouble you; those referred to suffice for diagnosis between the innocuous and the dangerous mosquitoes.
The facts regarding the malaria parasite which I have described are of great importance for many reasons. First, because they helpus to understand the pathology and etiology of malaria. Secondly, they help us in diagnosis. Thirdly, our knowledge of the parasite is invaluable in directing treatment. Lastly, a knowledge of the life-history of the malarial parasite is of extreme value for the prevention of malarial disease, for could we by mechanical or other arrangements prevent the mosquito attacking the human body, we could prevent the malarial parasites from entering the human body; or if we could abolish the mosquito by drainage or other means from a country, then we might be sure that we would abolish the malaria of that country also.
Attempts are being made to solve these practical problems. At the present moment such attempts are being actively made in Rome by Professor Celli and elsewhere by others. I have no doubt that in the course of a few years we shall get some very valuable results in this direction and that, thanks to this new-born knowledge about the malarial parasites, better times are rapidly approaching for malarial countries.
Amongthe general laws of physical science, none seems more firmly established than that of the conservation and correlation of energy; according to this the various forms of energy that constitute the domain of experimental physics, heat, light, electricity, magnetism and chemical action, have reciprocal dependence and “can not originate otherwise than by devolution from some preëxisting force,” or rather energy. That motion is convertible into heat, heat into light and both the former into electricity are phenomena familiar to every one who uses incandescent bulbs or rides in a trolley, and we do not usually recognize any production of light unaccompanied by heat. True, the little fire-fly is possessed of a mysterious power that enables it to emit light without enough heat to affect Langley’s most sensitive bolometer, but the eminent Secretary of the Smithsonian has to admit that the “cheapest form of light” is produced by “processes of nature of which we know nothing.” This little understood property called phosphorescence is shared by many living organisms, both animal and vegetable, as well as by substances of the mineral kingdom; to the former belong coelenterates, mollusks, crustacea, fishes and insects, and decaying wood, certain mushrooms, etc.; to the latter the Bologna stone, so-called, and the commercial article called ‘Balmain’s paint.’
In the case of the mineral substances, barium or calcium sulfids and the like, the light-giving power is not an innate property, but is set in operation by exposure to the energy of sunlight, the light of burning magnesium or to some other source of actinism; moreover, the power thus acquired by insolation is a fugitive one, the substances exercising it after three or four hours become ‘dead’ and lose their activity. Excepting then these living beings and these phosphorescent bodies, light as commonly known to us is always correlated with heat; within the last four years, however, discoveries have been made in France that seem to modify the position taken by philosophers and to necessitate new views concerning the manifestations of that energy with which the universe is endowed. A group of French savants have found mineral substances that apparently give out light perpetually without any exciting cause, realizing the dream of the alchemists—a perpetual lamp consuming no oil. These substances also emit rays having the penetrating properties of X-rays, other rays affecting a photographicplate, and fourthly, rays causing air to become a conductor of electricity. The history of these discoveries can be briefly given.
Röntgen’s discovery of the rays that pass through metals and solids opaque to light was made in 1895, and in the following year, Becquerel, a distinguished French academician, discovered that salts of the metal uranium (substances that had long been used in coloring china and glass) emit invisible radiations capable of discharging electrified bodies and of producing skiagraphic images on sensitive plates; he found that potassio-uranic sulfate emits rays that pass through black paper and give photographic impressions in the same way as Röntgen rays. This property is not limited to the brilliantly fluorescent uranic salts, but is shared by the non-fluorescent uranous salts, and is exhibited by compounds whether phosphorescent or not, whether crystalline, melted or in solution, as well as by the metal itself. The permanence of this activity is amazing, substances kept in a double leaden box more than three years continuing to exert the power.
Shortly after the announcement by Becquerel, experimenters found that other substances have the power of emitting ‘Becquerel Rays,’ such as calcium and zinc sulfids and compounds of thorium. In 1898 Mme. Sklodowska Curie, working in the laboratory of the Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in Paris, devised a special apparatus for measuring the electrical conductivity of the air when under the influence of ‘radio-active bodies,’ and by its means studied the behavior of pitchblende (uraninite), and of other uranium minerals; finding that some specimens of pitchblende had three times as much energy as uranium itself, she came to the conclusion that the peculiar property is due to some unknown body contained in the minerals and not to uranium. Examining the mineral with the aid of her husband, the two found a substance analogous to bismuth, four thousand times stronger than uranium, which was named ‘Polonium,’ in honor of the native land of Mme. Curie. In December of the same year, the lady received the Gegner prize of 4,000 francs awarded by the Academy of Sciences, as a substantial appreciation of her discovery, and later in the same month Mme. and M. Curie announced that they had found a second body in pitchblende, which they named ‘Radium.’ More recently, M. Debierne, working under the auspices of Mme. Curie, has discovered a third body, which he calls ‘Actinium,’ an unfortunate appellation because ‘actinium’ has already been used for an element announced by Dr. Phipson and since discarded.
These three ‘radio-active’ substances do not possess identical properties; their rays are unequally absorbed and are differently affected in a magnetic field; moreover radium emits visible rays, while polonium does not. Nor have they the same chemical affinities; polonium belongs to the bismuth group, radium to the barium and actinium to thetitanium series. They have not been separated perfectly from their analogues, and consequently their chemical properties and the actual intensity of their physical activities is very imperfectly known. The difficulties of securing even small quantities of crude materials are enormous; Fritz Giesel obtained from one thousand kilograms of raw material only fifteen grams of active compounds, and Mme. Curie, operating on half a ton of the residues of uranium from a chemical manufactory, got about two kilograms of barium chloride rich in radium, but the percentage of active substances in these mixtures is unknown.
Radium is spontaneously luminous, and all the bodies emit rays that excite phosphorescence in gems, fluorite and other minerals; they communicate radiant energy to inactive substances, and they exert chemical action, transforming oxygen into ozone and producing changes in the color of glass and of barium platino-cyanid.
Through the enterprise and liberality of the Smithsonian Institution, and by the courtesy of Professor Langley, I have enjoyed the opportunity of studying small specimens of these rare and costly substances; they comprised ten grams of ‘radio-active substance’ prepared by a manufacturing chemist of Germany and smaller quantities of ‘radium’ and of ‘polonium’ from Paris. On removing the wrappings of the German specimens in a dark room, they were seen to emit greenish-white light that gave to the enveloping papers a peculiar glow, similar to the fluorescence produced by Röntgen rays. Simple tests of the radium showed that it gave the usual reactions of barium; on boiling it with water it lost its luminosity, but on heating to dull redness this property returned in the dark. It also caused a barium platino-cyanid screen to fluoresce.
Experiments to test the actinic power of these bodies gave interesting results; on exposing sections of photographic plates, at distances of five inches, from two to twelve minutes, bands were obtained varying in intensity with the duration of action. By exposing sensitive plates behind negatives to the radiant materials from two to three hours, excellent transparencies were secured; on substituting Eastman’s bromide paper good prints were obtained.
The penetrating power of the rays emitted permits the production of skiagraphs; the plates were enveloped in Carbutt’s black paper (impermeable to light), and on them were laid pieces of tinfoil cut in openwork pattern; after one hour’s exposure negatives were secured plainly showing the pattern. Analogous experiments were carried on with the specimens from Paris, but they were only one fifth as strong in effects; that labelled ‘polonium sub-nitrate’ had positively no action on the plates used.
The primary source of the energy manifested by these extraordinary substances has greatly puzzled physicists, and as yet remains a mystery.Mme. Curie, speculating on the matter, conjectured that all space is continually traversed by rays analogous to Röntgen rays, but far more penetrating, and not capable of being absorbed by certain elements of high atomic weight, such as uranium and thorium. Becquerel, reflecting on the marvellous spontaneous emission of light, said: “If it can be proved that the luminosity causes no loss of energy, the state of the uranium is like that of a magnet which has been produced by an expenditure of energy and retains it indefinitely, maintaining around it a field in which transformation of energy can be effected; but the photographic reductions and the excitation of phosphorescence require an expenditure of energy, of which the source can only be in the radio-active substances.” Somewhat later, Becquerel hazarded the opinion that the radiation is composed at least in part of cathodic rays; but these have been proved to be material, hence the induced activity must be caused by material particles impinging upon the substances excited. This materialistic theory seems to be confirmed by the results of ingenious experiments made by Mme. and M. Curie; they placed a sensitive plate beneath a salt of radium supported on a slab of lead, in the vicinity of an electro-magnet. Under these conditions, when the current was passing, the rays emitted were bent in curved lines upon the sensitive plate, making impressions.
It may be objected, says a French writer, that the materialistic theory requires us to admit actual loss of particles of matter, nevertheless the charges are so feeble that the most intense radiation yet observed would require millions of years for the removal of one milligram of substance.
While writing these lines, we have news of experiments that seem to throw doubt on the elementary character of these radio-active bodies; Bela von Lengyel, of Budapest, claims to have prepared the so-called ‘radium’ synthetically. By fusing with the heat of electricity uranium nitrate mixed with a small percentage of barium nitrate, and treating the mass with acids, he obtained a substance that gives out actinic rays, Röntgen rays, excites platino-cyanid screens and causes air to conduct electricity; in short, the Hungarian chemist gets material possessing all the properties characteristic of the ‘element’ announced by Mme. Curie.
Admitting that radio-active bodies can be manufactured to order, are we any nearer explaining their mysterious powers?
Speculations as to the future history and applications of these wonder-working bodies press upon even the dullest imagination; if a few grams of earth-born material, containing only a small percentage of the active body, emit light enough to affect the human eye and a photographic plate, as well as rays that penetrate with X-ray power, what degree of luminosity, of actinism and of Röntgenism (if the termmay be allowed), is to be expected from an hundred weight of the quintessence of energy purified from interfering matter? And to what uses is this light-generating material to be applied? Are our bicycles to be lighted with discs of radium in tiny lanterns? Are these substances to give us the ‘cheapest form of light?’ Are we about to realize the chimerical dream of the alchemists?
Seriously, in what direction is profound study of these substances going to lead us? Will it not greatly extend our knowledge of physical manifestations of energy and their correlation? In what corner of the globe will be found the cheap and convenient supply of the raw material yielding the radio-active bodies? Will not chemists be obliged to re-examine much known material by laboratory methods conducted in the dark? Many of us have worked up pounds of pitchblende to extract the uranium oxids, and in so doing have poured down the waste-pipe or thrown into the dust-bin the more interesting and precious bodies.
Whatever the future may bring, scientists are deeply indebted to Becquerel and to Mme. and M. Curie for placing in their hands new methods of research and for furnishing a novel basis for speculation destined to yield abundant fruits.
Washington was a surveyor and explorer before he entered upon the fields of war and statecraft, and his honesty of purpose, sincerity of action and accuracy of statement and method, so manifest throughout his career as a soldier and statesman, are found also in the earlier record. At the age of sixteen he crossed the Blue Ridge on horseback and made a series of successful surveys in the Shenandoah valley, overcoming physical obstacles with the method and system of a modern scientist. At twenty-two he led a party into the wilderness of the valley of the Ohio to treat with the French and Indians. He then became acquainted with the great resources of the interior, and saw that the valleys of the James and Potomac afforded unusual facilities for lines of transportation for the trade ‘of a rising empire.’ In 1754 he reported in favor of a scheme of communication between the Atlantic states and the great west. Sixteen years later he suggested that the project of opening up the Potomac be ‘recommended to public notice.’ The idea contained in the Potomac scheme was of far-reaching import, and only the present generation can fully realize its significance.
Washington was not only the first to map and recommend the general route of the great highways called the National Pike and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which are now in truth ‘becoming the channels of conveyance of the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire,’ but he was also the first to predict the commercial success of that route through the Mohawk valley which was afterwards taken by the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad.
One hundred and fifteen years ago he asked: “Would it not be worthy of the wisdom and attention of Congress to have the western waters well explored, the navigation of them fully ascertained and accurately laid down, and a complete and perfect map made of the country.... The advantages would be unbounded, for sure I am that nature has made such a display of her bounties in those regions that the more the country is explored the more it will rise in estimation, consequently greater will the revenue be to the Union.” Again he declared, “I shall not rest contented until I have explored the western country and have traversed those lines which have given bounds to a new empire.”
Washington did not do this as fully as he wished, but his ambition has been and is being realized through the medium of hundreds of enterprises under both national and private encouragement. The result of a trip made in the fall of 1784 was the real historic beginning of the Potomac enterprise. On his return he wrote to Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia, “I shall take the liberty now, my dear sir, to suggest a matter which would mark your administration as an important era in the annals of this country if it should be recommended by you and adopted by the Assembly.” He reached far out for those days, assuming Detroit as a point of departure for the trade of the northwest territory. His confidence in the practical abilities of the American people is shown by the remark, “A people who are possessed with the spirit of commerce, who see and will pursue their destinies, may achieve almost anything. No person who knows the temper, genius and policy of this people as well as I do can harbor the smallest doubt.”
In urging the Potomac scheme, helater asked that commissioners be appointed to make a careful survey of the Potomac and James rivers to their respective sources, and that a complete map of the country intervening between the seaboard, the Ohio waters and the Great Lakes be presented to the people. “These things being done,” he says, “I shall be mistaken if prejudice does not yield to facts, jealousy to candor and finally, if reason and nature, thus aided, do not dictate what is right and proper to be done.”
He introduced his plan to the notice of Congress, thus making the first suggestion to that body of the policy of national improvements which the present generation is carrying on, as well as of the policy of exploration and national surveys to which our Government so firmly adheres. To-day the Government is carrying forward surveying work by means of the largest and most thoroughly equipped organizations in existence, and thus is Washington honored.
The scientific men of to-day owe to Washington profound respect and gratitude for the scientific spirit he cultivated in his work. The Government once established on so high a plane, it necessarily followed that all true science should be encouraged and be enlisted in the development of the citizen and of the material resources of the nation.
Charles D. Walcott,U. S. Geological Survey,Washington, D. C.
The leading article of the June number of theCentury Magazineis entitled “The Problem of increasing Human Energy,” and is written by Nikola Tesla. Mr. Tesla offers the reader some naive verbal analogies between the causes of human progress and the ‘energy’ of theoretical physics, and a eulogy of a number of inventions which he expects to make. He intersperses these with sundry remarkable statements such as, “our own earth will be a lump of ice;” “Though this movement is not of a translatory character, yet the general laws of mechanical movement are applicable to it;” “That we can send a message to a planet is certain, that we can get an answer is probable;” “It is highly probable that if there are intelligent beings on Mars they have long ago realized this very idea [the transmission of electrical energy for industrial purposes without wires],which would explain the changes on its surface noted by astronomers.” (The italics are our own.)
Mr. Tesla’s doctrine of human energy is in some ways as original as the inventions and discoveries which he expects to make. Each of us is, he says, a part of a unitary whole, ‘man.’ “This one human being lives on and on.... Therein ... is to be found the partial explanation of many of those marvelous phenomena of heredity which are the result of countless centuries of feeble but persistent influence.” Now we may “assume that human energy is measured by half the product of man’s mass with the square of a certain hypothetical velocity ... the great problem of science is, and always will be, to increase the energy thus defined.... This mass is impelled in one direction by a force F, which is resisted by another partly frictional and partly negative force R, acting in a direction exactly opposite, and retarding the movement of the mass.”
Unhappily Mr. Tesla in his enthusiasm to progress to recommendations of religion, vegetarianism, the old régime for women and the artificial preparation of nitrogen compounds, neglects to state which direction is the proper one for the human mass to follow, north, south, east, west, toward the moon or Sirius or to Dante’s Satan in the centre of the earth. Nor does he explain how ‘enlightenment’ makes the mass of human bodies go in an exactly opposite direction to that toward which ‘visionariness’ impels them, nor reveal why, if his account be true, he and a ‘visionary’ can walk in the same direction.Of course the whole notion that the ‘velocity’ of the human ‘mass,’i.e.the space it traverses in a given time, has any connection with human progress or is of any value to anybody or anything, is absurd.
Mr. Tesla has enjoyed considerable, excellent repute as a gifted student of certain electrical phenomena and one expects a good deal from his “electrical experiments, now first published.” Mr. Tesla, too, expects a good deal from them. It would take too long to even note here all the important scientific discoveries which Mr. Tesla expects to make or all the benefits which he expects to thereby confer upon mankind in general and in particular upon those who exploit his inventions. Some samples may be given. War will be rendered harmless by being reduced to a sort of game between ‘telautaumata,’ machines which behave “just like a blind-folded person obeying instructions received through the ear,” any one of which is “enabled to move and to perform all its operations with reason and intelligence.”
Says Mr. Tesla: “I purpose to show that, however impossible it may now seem, an automaton may be contrived which will have its ‘own mind,’ and by this I mean that it will be able, independent of any operator, left entirely to itself, to perform, in response to external influences affecting its sensitive organs, a great variety of acts and operations as if it had intelligence. It will be able to follow a course laid out or to obey orders given far in advance; it will be capable of distinguishing between what it ought and what it ought not to do, and of making experiences or, otherwise stated, of recording impressions which will definitely affect its subsequent actions. In fact, I have already conceived such a plan.”
Inasmuch as the interest in this telautomatic warfare is to be purely æsthetic, it would seem as if international bull-fights or kite-flying or spelling matches or potato-races might do as well, and have the added advantage of leaving Mr. Tesla’s expectations free to wander among the following prospective discoveries.
New sources of energy, Mr. Tesla thinks, may be opened up, such as a wheel which shall perform work without any further effort on our part than that of constructing it. “Imagine a disc of some homogeneous material turned perfectly true and arranged to turn in frictionless bearings on a horizontal shaft above the ground. This disk, being under the above conditions perfectly balanced, would rest in any position. Now, it is possible that we may learn how to make such a disk rotate continuously and perform work by the force of gravity without any further effort on our part.... To make the disk rotate by the force of gravity we have only to invent a screen against this force. By such a screen we could prevent this force from acting on one half of the disk, and the rotation of the latter would follow.”
Into further particulars concerning the nature of such a screen Mr. Tesla does not enter, though it would seem a matter well fitted to engage his peculiar gifts. The ‘screen against gravity’ idea has already entered into a popular story, but scientific men have probably not given it much consideration.
By producing a ‘sink’ or reservoir of a low temperature, thereby inducing the heat of the ambient medium to transform itself in part into other forms of energy (e.g.electrical), Mr. Tesla hopes to “get any amount of energy without further effort” beyond the amount needed to create the ‘sink.’ We should thus employ “an ideal way of obtaining motor power,” and incidentally rebuke the narrow-minded physics of Carnot and Lord Kelvin.
By means of his electrical oscillator Mr. Tesla has satisfied himself that he can transmit electrical energy in large quantities without wires. He expects that this can be done to great economic advantage. Then would come the golden age. “Men could settle down everywhere, fertilize and irrigate the soilwith little effort, and convert barren deserts into gardens, and thus the entire globe could be transformed and made a fitter abode for mankind.”
The golden age figures largely in Mr. Tesla’s article; he offers us all that is entrancing and wonderful. He is generous. We ask for the bread of definite facts of science and intelligible evidence, but he gives us the amethyst and topaz and diamonds of an ambient medium doing all our work and the atmosphere transporting all our motive power and the tyrant gravity held powerless by a screen, and Mr. Tesla correcting Lord Kelvin’s errors. Still amethyst and topaz and diamonds are only stones. They may dazzle the magazine reader, but they do not nourish the student of science.
The editorial department of theCentury Magazineperhaps felt that these jewels were a bit too bright. We read there that “much that must seem speculative to the layman can take its proper place only in the purview of the scientist.” Some conservative scientists will feel like growling, “And much that must seem bosh to the man of science can take its proper place only in the purview of the editorial departments of popular magazines.” Leaving aside the present case, it is a fact that the same care which is exercised by editors to secure in their contributions excellence of style and syntax, a proper moral tone and freedom from advertisement of business ventures, is not exercised to secure accuracy in statements of fact or decent credibility in matters of theory. The editors apparently impute to their readers a desire to be entertained at all costs. They descend to a footing with the Sunday newspaper instead of trying to rise to the level of such scientific literature as Huxley or Tyndall gave us. They evidently often do not know science from rubbish and apparently seldom make any effort to find out the difference. They should at least submit their scientific literature to competent men for criticism and revision.
The general public is helpless before any supposedly scientific statement. It may judge vaguely by the standing of the paper or magazine or book containing it, by the name of the writer or by the general tone in which the article is written. But it cannot judge definitely by comparison with relevant facts or by critically examining the logic of the deductions, for the general public lacks both knowledge of the relevant facts and training in logical criticism. That a man should invent a microscope which will enable one to see objects a million times as small as can be seen with the naked eye seems no more questionable to the general public than that a man should cause unfertilized eggs to develop. Yet the first would be impossible while the second has been possible, probable, and still more lately proved. Guidance in scientific matters should be welcome if only for the protection thus given against fraudulent medicines, bogus inventions and nonsensical enterprises.
Physicist.
The memoirs presented to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on the occasion of the jubilee of Sir George Stokes, have been published in a stately volume by the Cambridge University Press. A year ago some four hundred men of science met at Cambridge to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the appointment of Sir George Stokes to the Lucasian professorship of mathematics, a chair held by Newton and a distinguished line of mathematicians. An official account of the proceedings, with a portrait of Professor Stokes, is given in the volume now issued. The seventy-two institutions sending delegates are arranged chronologically in the order of their foundation, and it is not unworthy of note that among the sixteen oldest institutions, the United States has five representatives, whereas Great Britain has thirteen universities and colleges younger than the Johns Hopkins University. The Rede lecture given by M. Alfred Cornu and entitled ‘La théorie des ondes lumineuses,’ is published in French, even the quotations from Newton’s ‘Opticks’ being translated into that language. M. Cornu states that by ‘une étude approfondie’ of the ‘Opticks,’ his lecture shows that Newton favored Descartes’s undulatory theory of light, rather than the emission theory usually attributed to him. The twenty-two memoirs that follow cover a wide range of subjects, nearly all of which have, however, a connection with the researches of Professor Stokes. They include three contributions from the United States, mathematical papers by Profs. E. W. Brown and E. O. Lovett, and a description by Professor Michelson of his echelon spectroscope.
In addition to this memorial volume, the Cambridge University Press, which is represented in America by The Macmillan Company, is at present publishing the collected papers of three eminent students of mathematical physics. The first volume of Lord Rayleigh’s ‘Scientific Papers’ contains seventy-eight contributions published from 1869 to 1881. The early papers show the influence of Maxwell, Lord Rayleigh’s predecessor in the chair of experimental physics at Cambridge, but it was apparently not until 1881 that he fully appreciated the importance of Maxwell’s electro-magnetic theory of light. The papers on acoustics were followed by the publication in 1877 of the classical work on the ‘Theory of Sound.’ Lord Rayleigh, at an early period, treated various optical subjects, including some of the phenomena of color vision. His explanation of the blue color of the sky and his treatment of the resolving power of telescopes are well known. The contributions on optics and acoustics have been continued to the present time, but they by no means limit his interests. There are important papers on hydrodynamics and mathematics, and longer and shorter contributions on a great range of subjects in mathematical physics, the science which at the present day is perhaps of supreme importance.
The second volume of Professor Tait’s ‘Scientific Papers’ contains those published since 1881. The first volume consisted of sixty papers, and this volume, which has followed with but little delay, adds seventy-three. As must be the case in collected papers, some are elaborate treatises while others fill only part of a single page; some are extremely technical while others were first published in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ and the ‘Contemporary Review.’ Among the more elaborate papers arethose on the physical properties of water contributed to ‘The Voyage of H. M. S. Challenger,’ on the kinetic theory of gases, on impact and on quaternions.
The third series just published by the Cambridge Press is the ‘Papers on Mechanical and Physical Subjects’, by Prof. Osborne Reynolds, of Owens College. The first volume contains forty papers from transactions and journals issued from 1869 to 1882. The most elaborate memoir is that on certain dimensional properties of matter in the gaseous state, which includes experiments on thermal transpiration of gases through porous plates and a theoretical extension of the dynamic theory of gas. Many of the papers, such as those on meteorological phenomena and the steering of vessels, are of popular interest. The Cambridge University Press is performing a work of the utmost value to science in undertaking the publication of these great volumes, and we can only regret that, in spite of the beginnings made at Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Pennsylvania and Columbia, American men of science have no such opportunities for the publication of their works as those afforded at Cambridge and Oxford.
That a large amount of popular interest centers in the study of tree life and all subjects incidental to forestry and horticulture is evidenced by the appearance of a second book on the subject under the title of ‘Our Native Trees and How to Identify Them’ (Scribners), by Harriet L. Keeler. The volume in question takes up the trees native of northern United States east of the Rocky Mountains, together with a few well-known foreign species which have become naturalized in this region.
The book opens with a key to the families of dicotyledonous species based upon leaf characters, and every species receives not only a full technical description, but also comes in for interesting comments upon habit and general ecological relations. Numerous drawings and half-tones add to the accuracy and clearness of the descriptions. It is not too much to say that the photographic reproductions surpass in beauty and presentation of detail any recent botanical publication, and the venation of leaves is shown in most instances by this method quite as well as it might be done by means of pen and ink sketches. The value of the descriptions is heightened by the inclusion of notes of economic interest. It is not unexpected that some errors should creep into the discussions on almost all phases of botany which are interspersed throughout the volume.
The appearance of a new botanical dictionary is most timely, and it is fortunate that the task of its preparation should be undertaken by such a skilful bibliographer as Mr. B. D. Jackson. His ‘Glossary of Botanical Terms’ (Lippincott) contains fifteen thousand words, or three times as many as have been included in any previous work of this character. This is indicative of a most energetic pursuit of investigations in all departments of the subject, and also of a lamentable tendency to the coinage by botanists of new and unnecessary terms upon the slightest pretext. A legitimate factor in the increase of the contents of such a work consists in the inclusion of words in common use which take on a technical meaning in botany; such, for instance, as altitude, abnormal, abrupt, absolute, accidental back, etc.
Derivations are given, but the history of the terms has not been attempted. According to the author, ‘anlage’ may be variously rendered asrudiment,inceptionorprimordium. ‘Chlorophyll’ receives the double consonant at the end of the last syllable against the popular extra-botanical practice. Regarding ‘medullary’ the author says: “I have given the accent as it is always spoken (medul’-lary) though all of the dictionaries (botanical?) accent it as med’-ullary except Henslow’s.” In this the author had in mind the practice among his insular colleagues only, since the latter pronunciationis given in the Standard, Century and Webster’s Dictionaries and is followed by nine tenths of the American botanists. “Mycorhizome = mycorrhiza-like structures in Corallorhiza and Epipogum roots,” and “Mycorrhiza = symbiotic fungi on the roots of plants, prothallia, etc.,” are not only incongruous with orthography and botanical fact, but also with the usage of all recent writers on this subject.
While many other errors of this character could be adduced, the general value of the book is scarcely lessened, and it will be of the greatest service to the working botanist, not only in raising the general literary tone of his writings, but also in placing at his command a choice of all of the established terms dealing with any phase of the subject; an aid which will be greatly conducive to increased accuracy of statement.
A decade since, the majority of the botanists engaged in the study of the distribution of plants on this continent, as well as the strict systematists, were quite unanimously of the opinion that the territory within the boundaries of the United States had been quite thoroughly explored, and that the task of the collector are well-nigh done. Despite this discouraging conclusion a few enthusiastic workers have not intermitted their labors in a more critical consideration of the floras of the newer and less thickly settled regions, with the result that scores and hundreds of new species have been brought to light each year, and the awakening interest in the subject promises a re-exploration of the great West.
A striking example of the results awaiting the student in this line is afforded by Dr. Rydberg’s ‘Flora of Montana and the Yellowstone Park’ (New York Botanical Garden), which has recently appeared. Although the first collections of plants in this region were made by the Lewis and Clarke expedition nearly a century ago, Dr. Ryberg finds 163 new species and varieties in the 1,976 which he lists in this volume. Of this number 487 are found on both the eastern and western slopes of the continental divide, 268 on the eastern side only, 520 on the western side only, 42 of which are arctic and inhabit the high mountain summits, and 659 which have originated in the exact region under discussion. Seven hundred and seventy-six of the species listed were not included in Coulter’s ‘Rocky Mountain Botany,’ published a few years ago.
The symposium on the ‘Plant Geography of North American,’ to be given at the coming meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will do much to systematize investigations of this character and broaden the method of treatment accorded the subject in the future.