Established by Edward L. Youmans

APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY

EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS

VOL. LIV
NOVEMBER, 1898, TO APRIL, 1899

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899

Copyright, 1899,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

Vol. LIV.Established by Edward L. Youmans.No. 4.

APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

FEBRUARY, 1899.

EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS.

CONTENTS.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
72 FIFTH AVENUE.
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Copyright, 1898, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
Entered at the Post Office at New York, and admitted for transmission through the mails at second-class rates.

GABRIEL DE MORTILLET.

APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

FEBRUARY, 1899.

VEGETATION A REMEDY FOR THE SUMMER HEAT OF CITIES.

A PLEA FOR THE CULTIVATION OF TREES, SHRUBS, PLANTS, VINES, AND
GRASSES IN THE STREETS OF NEW YORK FOR THE IMPROVEMENT
OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH, FOR THE COMFORT OF SUMMER
RESIDENTS, AND FOR ORNAMENTATION.[1]

By STEPHEN SMITH, M.D., LL.D.

One of the most prolific sources of a high sickness and death rate in the city of New York is developed during the summer quarter. It has been estimated that from three to five thousand persons die and sixty to one hundred thousand cases of sickness occur annually in this city, from causes which are engendered during the months of June, July, August, and September. An examination of the records of the Health Department for any year reveals the important fact that certain diseases are not only more frequent during the summer quarter than at any other time, but that they are far more fatal, especially in the months of July and August, than during any other period of the year. These are the "zymotic diseases," or those depending upon some form of germ life. The following table illustrates the course of mortality from those diseases in one year:

It appears that during eight months of the year, excluding June, July, August, and September, the average monthly mortality from "zymotic diseases" was 452. Had the same average continued during the remaining four months the total mortality from those diseases for that year would have been 4,424; but the actual mortality was 7,764, which proves that 3,340 persons were sacrificed during those four fatal months to conditions which exist in the city only at that period of the year. Still more startling is the estimate of the sickness rate caused by the unhealthful conditions created in the summer months in New York city. If we estimate that there are twenty cases of sickness for every death by a zymotic disease there were 66,800 more cases of sickness in the year above referred to than there would have been had the sickness rate been the same in the summer as in the other months of that year.

One of the saddest features of this high sickness and death rate appears when we notice the ages of those who are especially the victims of these fatal diseases. During the week ending July 9th last there were 399 deaths from diarrhœal diseases, of which number 382 were children under five years of age. The following table taken from the records of the Health Department show in a very striking manner how fatal to child life are the conditions peculiar to our summer season:

These statistics demonstrate the extreme unhealthfulness of New York during the summer, and the vast proportion of children who perish from the fatal agencies which are then brought into activity. It is a matter of great public concern to determine the nature of the unhygienic conditions on which this excessive mortality depends, and thus discover the proper remedial measures.

As high temperature is the distinguishing feature of the summer months, we very naturally conclude that excessive heat is a most important factor, if not the sole cause, of the diseases so fatal to human life at this period. A close comparison of the temperature and mortality records of any summer in this city demonstrates the direct relation of the former to the latter. For illustration, we will take the records of the Health Department during the past summer, selecting diarrhœal diseases for comparison, as they prevail and are most fatal at that season of the year. The table gives the total mortality from these diseases and the mortality from those diseases of children under five years of age. To the four months, June, July, August, and September, are added May and October, for the purpose of showing the gradual increase of the mortality from these diseases as the hot weather approaches and its decline as the hot weather abates.

Again, if we compare the temperature and mortality records for a series of days instead of months, it will be noticed that the mortality record follows the fluctuations of the heat record with as much precision as effect follows cause. The summer heat generally begins about the 20th of June and continues with varying intensity until the 15th of September. Within that period we can select many examples which strikingly illustrate the relations of temperature to mortality. For example, the first heated term of the year before us began on the 19th of June and lasted until the 26th of that month. The two records are as follows:

On the 28th of June a second heated term began, when the temperature rose to 80°, and continued above that figure until July 5th, a period of eight days. The following is the record, including the temperature in the sun:

It will be noticed that during the last heated period there was a more prolonged high temperature than during the first, and that the mortality of the second was higher for the same temperature than that of the first. These facts are in accord with the history of our summer months. The range of temperature increases as the season advances, and the rate of mortality rises, owing to the diminished resisting power to the effects of high heat on the part of the people, especially of the children, the aged, and those already enfeebled by disease.

In order to fully understand the influence of heat and its effects upon the public health, we must first notice the conditions regulating the temperature of the body in health and disease.

The temperature of animals in a state of health is not a fixed quantity, but has a limited range which depends upon internal and external conditions not incompatible with health. In man the range of temperature in health is fixed at 97.25° F. to 99.5° F. Any temperature above or below these extremes, unless explained by special circumstances not affecting the normal condition of the person, is an indication of disease. This comparatively fixed temperature in health is a remarkable feature of the living animal. When subjected to a temperature above or below the extremes here given it will still maintain its equilibrium. This fixed temperature under varying conditions of heat and cold is due to a "heat-regulating power," inherent in the constitution of every animal, by which it imparts heat when the temperature of the air is high and conserves heat when the latter is low. The heat escapes from the body—1, by radiation from the surface; 2, by transmission to other bodies; 3, by evaporation; and 4, by the conversion of heat into motion. The surface of the body furnishes the principal medium for the loss of heat by the first three methods—viz., radiation, transmission, and evaporation. It is estimated that 93.07 per cent of the heat produced escapes by the processes of radiation, evaporation, conduction, and mechanical work. The remaining heat units are lost by warming inspired air and the foods and drinks taken. There are apparently other subtile influences, so-called "regulators of heat," at work to preserve an equilibrium of temperature in the animal body, but they are not well known. The result of the operation of these forces is this—viz., if, by any means, the heat of the body is increased, compensative losses of heat quickly occur, and the normal temperature is soon restored; and if, on the contrary, the loss of heat is unusually increased, the compensative production of heat of the body at once follows, and the equilibrium is at once restored. The important fact to remember is this—viz., the production and loss of heat in the human organism when in health and not subjected to too violent disturbing causes are so nicely balanced that the temperature is always maintained at an average of 98.6° F., the extremes being 97.25° F. and 99.5° F. "So beautifully is this balance preserved," Parkes remarks, "that the stability of the animal temperature in all countries has always been a subject of marvel." If, however, anything prevents the operation of the processes of cooling—viz., radiation, evaporation, and conduction—the bodily temperature rises by the accumulation of heat, and death is the result from combustion. In experiments in ovens a man has been able to bear a temperature of 260° F. for a short period, provided the air was dry so that evaporation could be carried on rapidly. But if the air is very moist, and perspiration is impeded, the temperature of the body rises rapidly, and the person soon succumbs to the excessive heat. Another important fact is this, viz., the normal temperature of the young and of the very old is higher than the middle-aged. The infant at birth has a temperature of 99° F. to 100° F., and it maintains a temperature of 99° F. and upward for several days. The variations of temperature from other causes are much greater in children than in adults, as also the normal daily variations of temperature. About the sixtieth year the average temperature of man begins to rise, and approximates that of the infant. In the young and old the "heat-regulating power" is more readily exhausted, and hence continued high temperature is far more fatal to these classes.

The first noticeable fact in regard to bodily temperature in disease is that there are daily fluctuations as in health, but much more extreme. In general, the remission of temperature in disease occurs in the morning, and the exacerbation in the afternoon and evening; the minimum is reached between six and nine o'clock in the morning, and the maximum between three and six o'clock in the evening. In many diseases the minimum temperature is not below 100° F., and usually it is one or two degrees above that point, while the maximum has no definite limit and may reach the dangerous height of 107° F. It should be noticed that the highest daily temperature in disease, as in health, occurs in the afternoon, when the temperature of the air in summer is the greatest.

The conditions affecting the temperature of the body other than those due to physiological conditions are very numerous. First and most obvious is the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. It is a well-established fact that an average temperature of the air of 54° F. is best adapted to the public health, for at that temperature the decomposition of animal and vegetable matter is slight, and normal temperature is most easily maintained. Every degree of temperature above or below that point requires a more or less effort of the heat-regulating power to maintain the proper equilibrium. Even more potent in elevating the bodily temperature is the introduction into the blood, whether by respiration or by direct injection, of putrid fluids and the gases of decomposing matters. If this injection is repeated at short intervals, death will occur with a high temperature. The air of cities contains emanations, in hot weather, from a vast number of sources of animal and vegetable decomposition, and the inhalation of air so vitiated brings in contact with the blood these deleterious products in a highly divided state which cause a fatal elevation of temperature in the young, old, and enfeebled. The same effect is produced by the air in close and heated places, as in tenement houses, workshops, schoolhouses, hospital wards, and other rooms where many persons congregate for hours. Air thus charged with poisonous gases becomes more dangerous if the temperature of the place is raised, as happens almost daily in the summer months in cities.

From the preceding facts we may conclude that, as long as the body continues in health, the "heat-regulating power," which constantly tends to preserve an equilibrium of temperature, is capable of resisting the ordinary agencies that, operating externally or internally, exaggerate the heat-producing conditions, and thus destroy the individual. But if the person is suffering from a disease which weakens the "heat-regulating power" these deleterious agencies, which the healthy person may resist, will readily overpower the already quite exhausted heat-regulating forces, and he perishes by combustion. It is very evident that in an organism having complicated functions, like that of man, and subject to such a multitude of adverse influences, the balance between health and disease must be very nicely adjusted. Too great an elevation or too great a depression of temperature may destroy the "heat-regulating power," and disease or death will be the consequence. Or this "heat-regulating power" may be weakened or destroyed by causes generated within the body, or received from without, and the heat-producing agencies are then under influences which may prove to be powerfully destructive forces.

It will not now be difficult to understand in what manner high temperature affects the public health of large cities. Evidently in the direct action of heat upon the human body we have the most powerful agency in the production of our great summer mortality. While sunstroke represents the maximum direct effect of solar heat upon the human subject, the large increase of deaths from wasting chronic diseases and diarrhœal affections, of children under one year of age and persons upward of seventy years of age, shows the terrible effects of the prevailing intense heat of summer upon all who are debilitated by disease or age and thereby have their "heat-regulating power" diminished. The fact has been established by repeated experiment that when solar or artificial heat is continually applied to the animal the temperature of its body will gradually rise until all of the compensating or heat-regulating agencies fail to preserve the equilibrium, and the temperature reaches a point at which death takes place from actual combustion. In general, a temperature of 107° F. in man would be regarded as indicating an unfavorable termination of any disease. In persons suffering from sunstroke the temperature often ranges from 106° F. to 110° F., the higher temperature appearing just before a fatal termination.

The indirect effects of heat appear in the production of poisonous gases which vitiate the air and render it more or less prejudicial to health. Decomposition of all forms of refuse animal and vegetable matter proceeds with far greater rapidity during the summer quarter than during other months of the year. Among the early results of summer heat is the damage to food. Milk retailed through the city, the sole or chief diet of thousands of hand-fed infants, undergoes such changes as to render it not only less nutritious but also hurtful to the digestive organs. The vegetables and fruits in the markets rapidly deteriorate and become unfit for food. Meats and fish quickly take on putrefactive changes which render them more or less indigestible. The effect of this increase of temperature upon the refuse and filth of the streets, courts, and alleys, upon the air in close places, in the tenement houses, and upon the tenants themselves is soon perceptible. The foul gases of decomposition fill the atmosphere of the city and render the air of close and unventilated places stifling; while languor, depression, and debility fall upon the population like a widespread epidemic. The physician now recognizes the fact that a new element has entered into the medical constitution of the season. The sickly young, the enfeebled old, those exhausted from wasting diseases, whose native energies were just sufficient to maintain their tenure of life, are the first to succumb to this pressure upon their vital resources. Diarrhœal diseases of every form next appear and assume a fatal intensity, and finally the occurrence of sunstroke (or heat-stroke) determines the maximum effects of heat upon the public health. The sickness records of dispensaries and the mortality records of the Health Department show that a new and most destructive force is now operating, not only in the diseases above mentioned, but in nearly all of the diseases of the period. Fevers, inflammatory diseases, and others of a similar nature run a more rapid course, and are far less amenable to treatment. This is due, in the opinion of eminent medical authority, to the addition of the heat of the air to the heat of the body. Indeed, the only safety is in flight from the city to the country and to cool localities, as the seashore or the mountains. The immediate improvement of those suffering from affections of the city when transferred to the country is often marvelous, and shows conclusively how fatal is the element of heat in its direct and indirect effects upon the residents of the city.

Let us next consider the causes of high temperature in the city of New York. It is a well-established fact that the temperature of large and densely populated towns is far higher than the surrounding country. This is due to a variety of causes, the chief of which are the absence of vegetation; the drainage and hence the dryness of the soil; the covering of the earth with stone, bricks, and mortar; the aggregation of population to surface area; the massing together of buildings; and the artificial heat of workshops and manufactories. The difference between the mean temperature of the city at Cooper Institute and at the Arsenal, Central Park, for a single month, illustrates this fact. Another striking difference between the temperature of these two points of observation is that the range is much greater at Central Park than at Cooper Institute, the temperature falling at night more at the former than at the latter place. The effect of vegetation is to lower the temperature at night, while brick and stone retain the heat and prevent any considerable fall of temperature during the twenty-four hours. It may be said of New York that it has all the conditions of increased temperature above given in an intensified form. It has a southern exposure; all of its broad avenues run north and south; the surface is covered with stone, brick, and asphalt; it is destitute of vegetation except in its parks, which have a very limited area compared with the needs of the city; its buildings are irregularly arranged and crowded together so as to give the largest amount of elevation with the least superficial area; ventilation of courts, areas, and living rooms is sacrificed; its ill-constructed and overcrowded tenement houses, especially of certain districts, have the largest population to surface area of any city in the civilized world. To these natural and structural unfavorable sanitary conditions must be added the enormous production of artificial heat in dwellings. When the summer temperature begins to rise the solar heat is constantly added to the artificial heat already existing. The temperature of the whole vast mass of stones, bricks, mortar, and asphalt gradually increases, with no other mitigation or modification than that caused by the inconstant winds and occasional rainstorms. And the evils of high temperature are yearly increasing as the area of brick, stone, and asphalt extends. The records of sunstroke during the past few years is appalling, both on account of the number of cases and their comparative increase. If no adequate remedy is discovered and applied, the day would not seem to be distant when the resident, especially if he is a laborer, will remain in the city and pursue his work during the summer at the constant risk of his life.

Turning now to consider the question of the measures which are best adapted to protect the present and future population of New York from the effects of high summer temperatures, we are met by many suggestions of more or less value. The more important methods proposed are: a large supply of public baths; the daily flushing of the streets with an immense volume of river water; recreation piers; excursions to the seashore; temporary residence in the country, etc. But these are for the most part temporary expedients, applicable to individuals, and are but accessory to some more radical measure which aims to so change the atmospheric conditions that excessive heat can not occur. The real problem to be solved may be thus stated: How can the temperature of the city of New York be so modified during the summer months as to prevent that extreme degree of heat on which the enormous sickness and death rate of the people depend? Discussing the subject broadly from this standpoint, it becomes at once evident that we must employ those agencies which in the wide field of Nature are designed to mitigate heat and purify the air and thus create permanent climatic conditions favorable for the habitation of man.

It requires but little knowledge of the physical forces which modify the climate of large areas of the earth's surface to recognize the fact that vegetation plays a most important part. And of the different forms of vegetation, trees, as compared with shrubs, plants, vines, and grasses, are undoubtedly the most efficient. This is due to the vast area of surface which their leaves present to the air on a very limited ground space. The sanitary value of trees has hitherto been practically unrecognized by man. With the most ruthless hand he has everywhere and at all times sacrificed this most important factor in the conservation of a healthful and temperate climate. He has found, too late, however, that by this waste of the forests he has by no means improved his own condition. The winters have become colder, the summers hotter; the living springs have ceased to flow perpetually; the fertilizing streams have disappeared; the earth is deeply frozen in winter and parched in summer; and, finally, new and grave diseases have appeared where formerly they were unknown.

It is well understood that the temperature in a forest, a grove, or even a clump of trees, is cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the surrounding country. Man and animals alike seek the shade of groves and trees during the heat of the day, and are greatly refreshed and revived by the cool atmosphere. The difference between the temperature of the air under and among the branches of a single tree, densely leaved, and the surrounding air, on a hot day, is instantly realized by the laborer or traveler who seeks the shade. The thermometer in the sun and shade shows a difference of twenty, thirty, and forty degrees, and in the soil a difference of ten to eleven degrees. The reverse is true in winter. The laborer and traveler exposed to the cold of the open country find in the forest a degree of warmth quite as great as in a building but imperfectly inclosed. Railroad engineers inform us that they have occasion to use far less fuel in passing through forests in winter than in traversing the same distance in the open country. When the ground in the fields is frozen two or three feet deep, its temperature in the forest is found above the freezing point.

Forests and even single trees have, therefore, a marked influence upon the surrounding atmosphere, especially during the summer, and they evidently tend to equalize temperature, preventing extremes both in summer and winter. Hence they become of immense value as sanitary agencies in preserving equality of climatic conditions.

It is believed by some vegetable physiologists that trees exert this power through their own inherent warmth, which always remains at a fixed standard both in summer and winter. "Observation shows," says Meguscher,[2] "that the wood of a living tree maintains a temperature of from 54° to 56° F., when the temperature stands from 37° to 47° F. above zero, and that the internal warmth does not rise and fall in proportion to that of the atmosphere. So long as the latter is below 67° F., that of the tree is always highest; but, if the temperature of the air rises to 67° F., that of the vegetable growth is the lowest." Since, then, trees maintain at all seasons a constant mean temperature of 54° F., it is easy to see why the air in contact with the forest must be warmer in winter and cooler in summer than in situations where it is deprived of that influence.[3]

Again, the shade of trees protects the earth from the direct rays of the sun, and prevents solar irradiation from the earth. This effect is of immense importance in cities where the paved streets become excessively heated, and radiation creates one of the most dangerous sources of heat. Whoever has walked in the streets of New York, on a hot summer's day, protected from the direct rays of a midday sun by his umbrella, has found the reflected heat of the pavement intolerable. If for a moment he passed into the dense shade of a tree, he at once experienced a marked sense of relief. This relief is not due so much to the shade as to the cooling effect of the vaporization from the leaves of the tree.

Trees also have a cutaneous transpiration by their leaves. And although they absorb largely the vapor of the surrounding air, and also the water of the soil, they nevertheless exhale constantly large volumes into the air. This vaporization of liquids is a frigorific or cooling process, and when most rapid the frigorific effect reaches its maximum. The amount of fluid exhaled by vegetation has been, at various times, estimated with more or less accuracy. Hales[4] states that a sunflower, with a surface of 5.616 square inches, throws off at the rate of twenty to twenty-four ounces avoirdupois every twelve hours; a vine, with twelve square feet of foliage, exhales at the rate of five or six ounces daily. Bishop Watson, in his experiments on grasses, estimated that an acre of grass emits into the atmosphere 6.400 quarts of water in twenty-four hours.

It is evident, therefore, that vegetation tends powerfully to cool the atmosphere during a summer day, and this effect increases in proportion to the increase of the temperature. The influence of trees heavily leaved, in a district where there is no other vegetation, in moderating and equalizing the temperature, can not be overestimated. The amount of superficial surface exposed by the foliage of a single tree is immense. For example, "the Washington elm, of Cambridge, Mass., a tree of moderate size, was estimated several years since to produce a crop of seven million leaves, exposing a surface of two hundred thousand square feet, or about five acres of foliage."

Trees regulate the humidity of the air by the process of absorption and transpiration. They absorb the moisture contained in the air, and again return to the air, in the form of vapor, the water which they have absorbed from the earth and the air. The flow of sap in trees for the most part ceases at night, the stimulus of light and heat being necessary to the function of absorption and evaporation. During the heated portions of the day, therefore, when there is the most need of agencies to equalize both temperature and humidity, trees perform their peculiar functions most actively. Moisture is rapidly absorbed from the air by the leaves, and from the earth by the roots, and is again all returned to the air and earth by transpiration or exudation. The effect of this process upon temperature and humidity is thus stated by Marsh: "The evaporation of the juices of the plant by whatever process effected, takes up atmospheric heat and produces refrigeration. This effect is not less real, though much less sensible in the forest than in meadow and pasture land, and it can not be doubted that the local temperature is considerably affected by it. But the evaporation that cools the air diffuses through it, at the same time, a medium which powerfully resists the escape of heat from the earth by radiation. Visible vapor or clouds, it is well known, prevent frosts by obstructing radiation, or rather by reflecting back again the heat radiated by the earth, just as any mechanical screen would do. On the other hand, clouds intercept the rays of the sun also, and hinder its heat from reaching the earth." Again, he says, upon the whole, their general effect "seems to be to mitigate extremes of atmospheric heat and cold, moisture and drought. They serve as equalizers of temperature and humidity."

Again, let us notice the effects of trees upon malarial emanations. The power of trees, when in leaf, to render harmless the poisonous emanations from the earth has long been an established fact. Man may live in close proximity to marshes from which arise the most dangerous malaria with the utmost impunity, provided a grove intervene between his home and the marsh. This function of trees was known to the Romans, who enacted laws requiring the planting of trees in places made uninhabitable by the diffusion of malaria, and placed groves serving such purposes under the protection of some divinity to insure their protection. It is a rule of the British army in India to select an encampment having a grove between the camp and any low, wet soil.

Finally, trees purify the atmosphere. The process of vegetable nutrition consists in the appropriation by the plant or tree of carbon. This element it receives from the air in the form principally of carbonic acid, and in the process of digestion the oxygen is liberated and again restored to the air, while the carbon becomes fixed as an element of the woody fiber. Man and animals, on the contrary, require oxygen for their nutrition, and the supply is in the air they breathe. Carbon is a waste product of the animal system, and, uniting with the oxygen, is expired as carbonic acid, a powerful animal poison. A slight increase of the normal quantity of carbonic acid in the air renders it poisonous to man, and continued respiration of such air, or a considerable increase of the carbonic acid, will prove fatal. The animal and vegetable world, therefore, complement each other, and the one furnishes the conditions and forces by which the other maintains life and health. "Plants," says Schacht, "imbibe from the air carbonic acid and other gaseous or volatile products exhaled by animals, developed by the natural phenomena of decomposition. On the other hand, the vegetable pours into the atmosphere oxygen, which is taken up by animals and appropriated by them. The tree, by means of its leaves and its young herbaceous twigs, presents a considerable surface for absorption and evaporation; it abstracts the carbon of carbonic acid, and solidifies it in wood fecula, and a multitude of other compounds. The result is that a forest withdraws from the air, by its great absorbent surface, much more gas than meadows or cultivated fields, and exhales proportionally a considerably greater quantity of oxygen. The influence of the forests on the chemical composition of the atmosphere is, in a word, of the highest importance."[5]

In large cities, where animal and vegetable decomposition goes on rapidly during the summer, the atmosphere is, as already stated, at times saturated with deleterious gases. At the period of the day when malaria and mephitic gases are emitted in the greatest quantity and activity, this function of absorption by vegetation is most active and powerful. Carbonic acid, ammoniacal compounds, and other gases, products of putrefaction, so actively poisonous to man, are absorbed, and in the process of vegetable digestion the deleterious portion is separated and appropriated by the plant, while oxygen, the element essential to animal life, is returned to the air. Trees, therefore, in cities, are of immense value, owing to their power to destroy or neutralize malaria, and to absorb the poisonous elements of gaseous compounds, while they render the air more respirable by emitting oxygen.

The conclusion from the foregoing facts is inevitable that one of the great and pressing sanitary wants of New York city is an ample supply of trees. It is, in effect, destitute of trees; for the unsightly shrubs which are planted by citizens are, in no proper sense, adequate to the purpose which we contemplate. Its long avenues, running north and south, without a shade tree, and exposed to the full effect of the sun, are all but impassable at noonday in the summer months. The pedestrian who ventures out at such an hour finds no protection from an umbrella, on account of the radiation of the intense heat from the paved surface. Animals and man alike suffer from exposure in the glowing heat. Nothing mitigates its intensity but the winds or an occasional rainstorm. And when evening comes on, the cooling of the atmosphere produced by vegetation does not occur, and unless partially relieved by favoring winds or a shower the heat continues, but little abated, and the atmosphere remains charged with noxious and irrespirable gases. It is evident that shade trees, of proper kinds, and suitably arranged, supply the conditions necessary to counteract the evils of excessive heat. They protect the paved streets and the buildings largely from the direct rays of the sun; they cool the lower stratum of air by evaporation from their immense surfaces of leaves; they absorb at once the malarious emanations and gases of decomposition, and abstract their poisonous properties for their own consumption; they withdraw from the air the carbonic acid thrown off from the animal system as a poison, and decomposing it, appropriate the element dangerous to man, and give back to the atmosphere the element essential to his health and even life.[6]

And we may add that cultivated shade trees in New York would be an artistic and attractive feature of the streets. Every citizen enjoys trees, as is evident from the efforts made to cultivate them throughout the city.

It is frequently alleged that trees can not be successfully cultivated in cities on account of the gases in the soil. There are ample proofs to the contrary. The city of Paris strikingly illustrates the possibility of cultivating a large variety of trees in the streets and public places of large cities when the planting and cultivation is placed under competent authority. In our own country the cities of New Haven and Washington are examples of the successful cultivation of trees to an extent sufficient to greatly modify the summer temperature. Authorities on landscape gardening and forestry sustain the view that under proper supervision by competent and skilled persons a great variety of trees, shrubs, plants, and vines can be cultivated in the streets and public places of this city. Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead, to whom the city is so much indebted for his intelligent supervision of Central Park in its early period, warmly supported a movement to cultivate trees, shrubs, plants, and vines in the streets of New York. Dr. J.T. Rothrock, the very able and experienced Commissioner of Forestry of Pennsylvania, under date of October 10, 1898, speaking of the proposed plan of securing the cultivating trees in the streets of this city, remarks: "I think it an excellent measure, and I am sure that during the torrid season the more tree shade you have the fewer will be your cases of heat exhaustion. It is idle to say, as is often said in this country, that trees can not be made to grow in our cities. Under existing conditions the wonder is, not that trees look unhealthy in most cities, but that any of them manage to live at all. It is perfectly well known that the city of Paris has thousands of trees growing vigorously under such surroundings as the American gardener would think impossible. Two things are necessary to success—viz., first, the kinds of trees to endure city life must be found; and, second, select from among them such as are adapted by their size and shape to each special place."

Mr. Gifford Pinchot, of the Division of Forestry, Department of Agriculture, Washington, writes under date of December 2, 1898: "Street trees are successfully planted in great numbers in all of the most beautiful cities of the world. Washington and Paris are conspicuous examples. That such trees succeed is largely due to the great care taken in setting them out. The attractiveness of cities has come to be reckoned among their business advantages, and nothing adds to it more than well-selected, well-planted, and well-cared-for trees. On the score of public health trees in the streets of cities are equally desirable. They become objectionable only when badly selected and badly maintained."

In a recent paper on Tree Planting in the Streets of Washington, Mr. W.P. Richards, surveyor of the District of Columbia, remarks that, under the plan adopted, "tree planting has never been at an experimental stage" in that city. "Washington was a city of young trees during the seventies, and in the spring of 1875 more than six thousand trees were planted, consisting of silver maples, Norway maples, American elms, American and European lindens, sugar maples, tulip trees, American white ash, scarlet maples, various poplars, and ash-leaved maples.... A careful count was made of the trees in 1887, and by comparing this with the number of trees since planted and those removed, there is found to be more than seventy-eight thousand trees, which if placed thirty feet apart would line both sides of a boulevard between Washington and New York. These consist of more than thirty varieties." Mr. Richards adds: "The planting and care of trees in Washington grows from year to year, and the future will probably demand more skill and judgment than in years past. About twenty thousand dollars is spent annually, most of it in the care of old trees. From one to three thousand young trees are planted during the spring and fall of each year. The nursery has several thousand of the best varieties ready for planting."

The opinions of these authorities and the success of the work in Washington, now extending over a quarter of a century, determine beyond all question the feasibility and practicability of successfully cultivating trees in the streets of cities. And if any one doubts the power of trees cultivated in the streets to change the temperature of a city let him calculate the amount of foliage which the seventy-eight thousand trees, when full-grown, will furnish the city of Washington, taking as his basis the fact that a single tree, the Washington elm, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, when in full leafage, equals five acres of foliage, and that one acre of grass emits into the atmosphere 6.400 quarts of water in twenty-four hours, a powerfully cooling process.

We have, finally, to consider through what agency the proposed cultivation of trees in the city of New York can be accomplished most rapidly and successfully. Three methods may be suggested, viz.: 1. Encourage citizens each to plant and cultivate trees on his own premises. 2. Organize voluntary "tree-planting associations," which shall aid citizens or undertake to do the work at a minimum cost. 3. Place the work under the entire supervision and jurisdiction of public authority. The first method has been on trial from the foundation of the city, and its results are a few stunted apologies for trees which are useless for sanitary purposes and unsightly for ornamentation. The average citizen is entirely incompetent either to select the proper tree or to cultivate it when planted. Tree-planting associations have proved useful agencies in exciting a popular interest in the subject, and in aiding citizens in the selection of suitable trees and in cultivating them. The Tree-Planting and Fountain Society of Brooklyn, under the very able management of its accomplished secretary, Prof. Lewis Collins, is a model organization of the kind, and has accomplished a vast amount of good in this field in that city. But it may well be questioned if we have not reached a period of sanitary reform in cities when a work of the kind we contemplate in New York should not be undertaken by the strong arm of the city government, as a matter of public policy, and carried steadily forward to its completion. The growth of the greater city is far too rapid in every direction to await the slow movements of the people under the pressure of voluntary organizations. The best work can be done in those outlying districts where the streets are as yet but sparsely built upon, and the soil has been undisturbed. Again, it is of the utmost importance that a work of this kind, which will largely prove one of city ornamentation, should be under the exclusive direction of a skilled central authority having ample power and means to harmonize every feature of the work from the center of the city to its remotest limits. Finally, the successful cultivation of trees and other vegetation in our streets can be successfully carried on only by experts in the art of tree culture, who devote their entire time and energies to these duties, and are sustained by the power of the city government. Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead remarks, "Not one in a hundred of all that may have been planted in the streets of our American cities in the last fifty years has had such treatment that its species would come to be if properly planted and cared for." Mr. Richards, in the paper referred to on Tree Planting in the Streets of Washington, makes the following statement: "The selection, planting, and care of all trees in the streets of Washington are under the direction of the District authorities; individual preferences and private enterprises are not allowed to regulate this improvement, as is generally done in other cities. Moreover, the city has its own nursery, where seeds planted from its own trees grow and supply all the needed varieties."

It is apparent that to accomplish such a work as we propose the undertaking must be placed under the jurisdiction of a department of the city government, skilled in the performance of such duties, fully equipped with all needful appliances, and clothed with ample power and supplied with the financial resources necessary to overcome every obstacle. Fortunately, we have in our Department of Parks an organized branch of the city administration endowed with every qualification for the performance of these duties. The charter provides as follows: "It shall be the duty of each commissioner ... to maintain the beauty and utility of all such parks, squares, and public places as are situated within his jurisdiction, and to institute and execute all measures for the improvement thereof for ornamental purposes and for the beneficial uses of the people of the city, ... and he shall have power to plant trees and to construct, erect, and establish seats, drinking fountains, statues, and works of art, when he may deem it tasteful or appropriate so to do." At the head of this service is "a landscape architect, skilled and expert, whose assent shall be requisite to all plans and works or changes thereof respecting the conformation, development, or ornamentation of any of the parks, squares, or public places of the city, to the end that the same may be uniform and symmetrical at all times."

The conclusion seems inevitable that public policy requires that, in the interests of the health of the people and the comfort and well-being of that large class of the poor who can not escape the summer heat by leaving the city, the jurisdiction of the Park Department should be extended to all trees, shrubs, plants, and vines now and hereafter planted and growing in the streets of New York, and that said department should be required to plant such additional trees, shrubs, etc., as it may from time to time deem necessary and expedient for the purpose of carrying out the intent and purpose of such act which should be declared to be to improve the public health, to render the city comfortable to its summer residents, and for ornamentation.

"He who plants a tree, he plants love;
Tents of coolness, spreading out above
Wayfarers, he may not live to see.
Gifts that grow are best,
Hands that bless are blest.
Plant. Life does the rest."

MIVART'S GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE.[7]

By Prof. WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS.

If books like this by Professor Mivart, who holds that "the groundwork of science must be sought in the human mind," help to teach that the greatest service of science to mankind is not "practical," but intellectual, they are worthy the consideration of the thoughtful, even if this consideration should lead some of the thoughtful to distrust Mivart's groundwork, or to doubt whether it is firm enough for any superstructure.

Many, no doubt, think the desire to know a sufficient groundwork for science, believing that they wish to know in order that they may rightly order their lives; but the school to which Mivart belongs tells them all this is mere vulgar ignorance, since the groundwork of science is, and must be, something known, rather than a humble wish to know.

According to Mivart, the groundwork of science consists of truths which can not be obtained by reasoning, and can not depend for their certainty on any experiments or observations alone, since whatever truths depend upon reasoning can not be ultimate, but must be posterior to, and depend upon, the principles, observations, or experiments which show that it is indeed true, and upon which its acceptance thus depends. The groundwork of science must therefore be composed, he says, of truths which are self-evident; and he assures us that, if this were not the case, natural knowledge would be mere "mental paralysis and self-stultification."

He would tell the wayfarer who, having been lost among the mountains, comes at last upon a broad highway winding around the foothills and stretching down over the plain to the horizon, that an attempt to go anywhere upon this road is "mere paralysis," unless he knows where it begins and where it ends. He would have told the ancient dwellers upon the shores of the Nile that their belief that they owed to the river their agriculture, their commerce, their art and science, and all their civilization, was mere self-stultification, because they knew nothing of its sources in the central table-land.

May not one believe, with Mivart, that the scientific knowledge which arises in the mind by means of the senses through contact with the world of Nature, thus arises by virtue of our innate reason, and yet find good ground for asking whether physical science may not have something useful and important to tell us about the mechanism and history of this innate reason itself? Is proof that our reason is innate, or born with us, proof that it is ultimate or necessary or beyond the reach of improvement and development by the application of natural knowledge? May not this reason itself prove, perhaps, to be a mechanical phenomenon of matter and motion, and a part of the discoverable order of physical causation; and may not science some time tell us how it became innate, and what it is worth?

Questions of this sort are easy to ask but hard to answer; for many hold our only way to reach an answer to be to find out by scientific research and discovery. While this method may be too slow for a priori philosophers, may it not be wise for those who, being no philosophers, know of no short cut to natural knowledge, to admit that, while they would like to know more, they have not yet learned all there is to learn? If this suspension of judgment is indeed self-stultification, the case of many students is hard, though they may not really find themselves so helpless as they are told that they must be; for he who is told by the learned faculty that he is paralyzed need not be greatly troubled if he finds his powers for work as much at his command as they were before.

The modern student has heard so many versions of the story of the two-faced shield that he is much disposed to suspect that many of the questions which have so long divided "philosophers" may be only new illustrations of the old fable, and he asks whether there need be any real antagonism between those who attribute knowledge to experience and those who attribute it to our innate reason.

There are men of science who, seeing no good reason to challenge Plato's belief that experience, creating nothing, only calls forth the "ideas" which were already dormant or latent in the mind, do nevertheless find reason to ask whether exhaustive knowledge of our physical history may not some time show how these dormant "ideas" came to be what they are. They ask whether errors may not be judgments which lead us into danger and tend to our physical destruction, and whether it may not be because a judgment has, in the long run, proved preservative in the struggle for existence that we call it true. May not, for example, the difference between the error that the stick half in water is bent and the truth that the stick in air is straight, some time prove to be that the savage who has rectified his judgment has speared his fish, while he who has not has lost his dinner?

So long as we can ask such questions as this, how can we be sure that because a judgment is no more than might have been expected from us, as Nature has made us, at our present intellectual level, it is either necessary or ultimate or universal? Things that are innate or natural are not always necessary or universal, for while reason is natural to the mind of man, some men are unreasonable, and a few have been even known to be illogical.

It therefore seems clear that another view of the groundwork of science than that set forth by Professor Mivart is possible, for many believe that this groundwork is to be found in our desire to know what we do not yet know, rather than in things known; and they believe they wish to know in order that they may learn to distinguish truth from error, and walk with sure feet where the ignorant grope and stumble.

Many books are profitable and instructive even if they fail to convince; and the question which a prospective student of Mivart's book is likely to ask is whether it is consistent with itself; for if the author has not so far made himself master of his subject as to state his case without palpable contradiction, no one will expect much help from him. It is a remark of Aristotle, in the Introduction to the Parts of Animals, that while one may need special training to tell whether an author has proved his point, all may judge whether he is consistent with himself, and the attempt to learn whether Mivart's book is consistent may not greatly tax our minds.

He tells us that many men of science are "idealists"; and he says that idealism, being mere self-stultifying skepticism, must be refuted and demolished before we can begin our search for the groundwork of science or be sure that we know anything. It would have surprised Berkeley not a little to be told that his notions are the very essence of skepticism, for the good bishop tells us again and again that his only motive in writing is to make an end of idle skepticism, once for all, that they who are no philosophers, but simple, honest folks, may come by their own and live at ease.

There is little ease, and less justice, even at this late day, for the man of science who insists that he is neither an idealist nor a materialist nor a monist, but a naturalist; and that it will be time enough to have an opinion as to the relation between mind and matter when we find out; but many will, no doubt, be pleased to hear that the crime of which they are now suspected is no longer "materialism," but "idealism," for the public attaches no odium to the idealist, whatever may be Professor Mivart's verdict. Still all must feel an interest in the exposure of the weakness of idealism, since we have been told, by many shrewd thinkers, that Berkeley's statement of the case, while inconclusive, is unanswerable; although they hold that it is lack of experimental evidence which stands in the way of either its acceptance or its refutation.

Mivart begins his treatment of idealism by a simple and satisfactory summary, pages 36-38, of Berkeley's Principles, but he forgets it on the next page, for it is no exaggeration to assert that the "idealism" which he refutes is a mere parody on that which he has just given his readers, and something that no sane man would dream of holding.

For example, he admits, on page 38, that nothing "can be more absurd than the criticism of those persons who say that idealists, to be consistent, ought to run up against lamp-posts, fall into ditches, and commit other like absurdities." On page 47 he undertakes to show, "by the natural spontaneous judgment of mankind," that external material bodies exist "of themselves, and have a substantial reality in addition to that of the qualities we perceive; because the spontaneous judgment of mankind accords with what even animals learn through their senses. A wide river is an objective obstacle to the progress of a man's dog, as well as to that of the dog's owner."

One who compares the extract from page 38 with this from page 47 can, so far as I can see, reconcile them only by one of these hypotheses: 1, that Mivart holds a wide river to afford proof of reality which is not afforded by a ditch; or, 2, that the dog which does not run against lamp-posts affords evidence of the reality of Nature which is not afforded by a man in the same circumstances; or, 3, that "nothing can be more absurd than the criticism of these persons" who reason like Professor Mivart.

While sometimes right and sometimes wrong, like the rest of us, the apostle of tar water was no fool, although the groundwork of Mivart's science, in the book before us, is the assertion that idealists idiotically deny everything which they have not perceived, and hold that the external world has no existence.

It is hard to see how words could be clearer than those in which Berkeley repudiates all nonsense of this sort. "I do not argue," says he, "against the existence of any one thing that we apprehend, either by sense or by reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to believe my own senses, and to take things as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real things are the very things that I see and feel, and perceive by my senses. I can not for my life help thinking that snow is white and fire hot. And as I am no skeptic with regard to the nature of things, so neither am I as to their existence. That a thing should be really perceived by my senses, and at the same time not really exist, is to me a plain contradiction. Wood, stone, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the like things, which I name and discourse of, are things I know. Away, then, with all that skepticism, all those ridiculous philosophical doubts! I might as well doubt of my own being as of the being of those things I actually see and feel."

Mivart lays great stress upon the opinion of men in general as a refutation of idealism; and as Berkeley also says he is content to appeal to the common sense of the world, it may be well to ask what the verdict of "plain, untutored men" is, even if we doubt whether such a jury is the highest tribunal.

"Ask the gardener," says Berkeley, "why he thinks yonder cherry tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell you, because he sees it and feels it."

Mivart holds it one thing to see, and quite another matter to know that we see, for he says that while we see and feel the "qualities" of things by those "lower faculties" which we share with the "brutes," we perceive the "substance" in which these qualities inhere, by certain "higher faculties," which, whether represented in the brutes by latent potencies or not, have been "given" to man in their completeness, and not slowly and gradually built up from low and simple beginnings in the brutes.

The question we are to ask the gardener is, therefore, something to this effect: Whether he thinks the cherry tree exists because he sees it and feels it, or because, when he sees it and feels it, he knows that he does so?

If he weighs his words will he not ask how he can know that he does see it and feel it unless he knows that he does so? I, myself, am no philosopher; but, to my untutored mind, Mivart's distinction between things perceived by sense, and things perceived by sense, seems a mere verbal difference of accent and emphasis, rather than a fundamental distinction.

As most men use the word, "mind" implies consciousness of that sort which Mivart calls self-consciousness, and while there is no reason why those who choose should not so use the word as to include unconscious or "subconscious" or "conscientious" cerebration, most plain, untutored men prefer to use words as their neighbors do.

If long waiting on Nature has given to the old gardener more shrewdness than we commonly find in those whose pursuits are less leisurely, he may say that, while he knows the tree is there because he has planted it and tended it and watched it grow, it now falls on his eyes day after day, without attracting his notice, unless something about it which calls for his skill catches his eye, and commands his attention.

If we see reason to believe that this difference is a matter of words and definitions, rather than a real difference in kind; if we fail to find any sharp dividing line between unperceived cerebration and "mind," is not this, in itself, enough to lead even Macaulay's schoolboy to ask whether mind may not be a slow and gradual growth from small beginnings, and a co-ordinated whole, to the common function of which all its parts contribute, rather than a "gift" of "lower faculties" and "higher faculties"?

We must ask, however, whether mechanical explanations of mind are in any way antagonistic to the conviction that it is a gift. May not one study the history of the mechanism of mind, and the way this mechanism works, in a spirit of profound and humble gratitude to the Giver of all good gifts?

Is the lamentable prevalence, among plain untutored men, of the notion that mechanical explanations of Nature are inconsistent with belief that all Nature is a gift, to be laid to the charge of the men of science?

Is it not rather the poisonous fruit of the ill-advised attempts of "philosophers" like Professor Mivart to teach that a gift can not be a gift at all unless it is an arbitrary interruption to the law and order of physical Nature?

THE SCIENCE OF OBSERVATION.

By CHARLES LIVY WHITTLE.

This is an era of observation; in many fields and in divers countries the study of Nature from a strictly scientific standpoint is being prosecuted with results which are rapidly increasing our knowledge of the universe. This modern growth has come about as the natural rebound of the suppressed energy that has been held forcibly under subjugation during the last two thousand years, at a time when the closing echoes of the warfare between the literal interpretation of the Scriptures and science have ceased.

A review of this long battle with the forces of the Catholic and Protestant churches on the one hand, arrayed against a relatively few investigators, scattered through the last ten centuries, on the other hand, shows a record on which none can look without regret. As far as we are able to learn, there was little opposition to the study of science before the collection and translation of the old manuscripts now constituting the Alexandrian version of the Bible and the consequent upbuilding of the Jewish church. The remains of ancient Egyptian civilization show that science prior to that period, as measured by the discoveries in physics and astronomy, had attained no inconsiderable prominence; and had this people endured until the present time, uninfluenced by the strife that for many centuries racked the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere, we should to-day be far more advanced in our understanding of the universe.

In the more progressive countries, at least, the breaking of the shackles in which the investigating mind had been imprisoned for so long has led not only to a greater number of scientific workers, but also to an increase in the fields of observation. The methods of investigation have likewise undergone a transformation. In place of deductive reasoning, even as late as a few decades in the past, conclusions and generalizations are now founded on lines of thought more largely inductive. Men of middle age are able to recall the time when even our leading institutions of learning required instruction in several branches of science to be given by one teacher. It was possible twenty-five years ago for a man of great ability to master the essentials of the leading sciences and to teach them, but under the present stimulus for investigation no one can hope to excel in more than one subject. It has thus come about that in place of the many-sided teacher of science we now have in our larger universities specialists in every subject. As the work of research progresses, the specialist—for example, in geology—is compelled by the increased scope of the information on his subject to select one branch of geology of which he shall be master. The chair of geology is now split up into economic, glacial, and mining geology, paleontology, etc., and specialists are required in each division. This breaking up is true of most other sciences. In this labyrinth of specialized subjects, and the maze of technical terms rendered necessary thereby, the people as a whole can only grope in darkness; but out of this bewildering condition of affairs, from the mass of facts collected, and the resulting generalizations and theories, there may be culled the kernel of one important principle by means of which these facts are ascertained and the generalizations made. The growth of science and its ever-ramifying divisions, and the gradual establishment of new methods of investigation, have brought forth what may be termed the science of observation; and it is through an application of the above principle that the people may be taught correctly to interpret Nature, and, by their new habit of thought, to free the brain from the tangle of superstition which is still present with most of us.

A knowledge of how to observe natural phenomena and to draw correct inferences therefrom has been the product of slow growth, while through long custom, in matters closely pertaining to our daily life, there has been observation on strictly scientific principles for centuries. Stated succinctly, natural phenomena are due to causes, one or more, simple or complex. These causes are the laws of the universe, and to arrive at an understanding of them we must free our minds of any bias and study phenomena experimentally in the laboratory, or in our daily contact with Nature. In this way a mass of facts will be gathered by the systematic observer which will be found to fall into natural groups, and by inductive reasoning the laws governing each group may be learned. It is not possible for mankind as a whole to investigate in this exhaustive manner; but it is important that the method of arriving at the laws of Nature be understood. Many and, in fact, most phenomena met with in some of the sciences, particularly those having to deal with the earth, are susceptible of correct interpretation without attempting broad generalizations, if the principles of scientific observation are brought to bear upon their solution, and it is our purpose to show by practical examples drawn from Nature how elementary students may attack and solve some of the simple problems met with on every side. It is proposed to use for illustration simple phenomena pertaining to the earth, drawn from geology and its newly constituted sister science, physical geography. These two sciences perhaps afford the greatest range of phenomena, which are accessible to every one, in whatsoever part of the earth he may reside. No part of the land surface is wanting in problems which demand explanation, and which may be attacked from the standpoint of the geologist or physical geographer, or both.

One of the most pronounced departures taking place in preparatory-school education at the present time is to be found in the prominence given to these subjects, not only in the schoolroom, but by practical experience in the laboratory of Nature, among the hills and mountains, as well. The object of this departure is twofold: the first and most important is to train the young early to observe phenomena and to interpret them; the second, in a narrower sense, is purely educational. The one inculcates a habit of thought that will be of inestimable advantage in pursuing future study; the other, without taking into consideration the element of mental training, constitutes instruction in concrete things that are matters of general education.

Before the student in the introductory schools is brought in contact with problems in the field, it is essential that he receive text-book or oral instruction in some of the geological processes giving rise to the phenomena to be studied later out of doors. In practical teaching the student is taken on excursions into the region not far removed from the school. At first some simple geological facts are shown him, often on a very small scale, but embodying principles which, when understood, lead to a ready interpretation of larger problems. Step by step the first principles are amplified by a larger and more varied class of examples, until the student is able logically to apply the reasoning in explanation of simple problems to the solution of the greater problems in physical geography and geology. In the absence of such excursions, I shall introduce a series of photographs carefully arranged to lead the reader along the same line of reasoning up to similar broad conclusions—a method which, if not so satisfactory and instructive, will at least have an educative value.

Fig. 1.—Quarry showing Fresh and Weathered Rocks.

Our first excursion will be to a locality where an open cut has been made for the purpose of carrying on quarrying operations. The accompanying photograph has been so taken as to include both the top and the bottom of the quarry (Fig. 1). Let us first inspect the rock in the lower part of the quarry. The existence of planes of fracture, or joints, crossing the rock in various directions, dividing it into blocks, early attracts our attention. The stone appears dark-colored, tough, and is seen to be made up of two or three different minerals: one is black, cleaves readily into thin plates of a translucent nature, and we easily recognize it as an iron-bearing mica, or isinglass. Another is white, and cleaves or breaks in two directions, making angles of about ninety degrees; this we know as common feldspar. The third is less easily recognized as pyroxene, another of the many minerals containing iron. Having tested our knowledge of mineralogy, we will look about and see if all the rock exposed is like that at the bottom of the quarry. As we ascend from the point indicated by the lower hammer, we notice that the dark blue rock gradually takes on a rusty hue, and its toughness has become less. Going still higher, the rusty character increases, and along joints the rock is so lacking in coherency as to fall to pieces when struck a light blow with a hammer. The central portions of the blocks, however, after we have removed the outer shell of rusty material, are seen to be like the lower rock. In the middle foreground of the picture there are shown several bowlders derived from above, which are merely these residual cores, and are known as bowlders of disintegration. These are also shown in place near the top of the picture at the extreme left. Near the top of the quarry, at a point marked by the upper hammer, the solid rock gives place to a rusty mass of loose material, traversing which the cracks may still be seen, and in which there are few indications of the solid rock[8] (see Fig. 2). This loose material when carefully examined is found to be made up of exactly the same minerals as the dense rock below, but we notice that the mica and pyroxene are rusty and that the feldspar is stained yellowish brown. The pyroxene in particular is very much changed, and quickly crumbles away in the hand. It is clear that there is every stage between the solid rock and the incoherent powder at the surface of the ground. The joint planes crossing the solid rock below may still be observed traversing the decayed portion, and also many rounded areas of rock, which are seen to be identical with the stone at the bottom of the quarry.[9]

Fig. 2.—Detailed View of a Portion of Quarry showing Weathered Rock.

How shall the facts before us be explained? It has been shown that the dense rock and the loose material are the same mineralogically, and grade from one into the other, and it is certainly rational to suppose that the latter is merely a changed form of the first. Some force must have been at work on the solid rock, destroying its coherency and converting it into loose sand. If we inspect the powdered rock, it will become apparent that this change has been brought about mainly by the process of weathering: surface water, with its ever-present acid impurities, has brought about the partial decay of the pyroxene and mica and caused the disintegration of the upper part of the rock. Water has not only attacked the rock from the upper surface, but has penetrated to considerable depths along the joint planes, working inward toward the center of each block until the mass becomes completely disintegrated. This process explains the concentric shells about cores of unaltered rock, each representing original joint blocks, which are seen in the second photograph. All our excursions into the field will show that this is not an isolated case, for wherever a ledge is exposed to our view there will be found a zone of weathered rock, varying in thickness from mere films to many feet.

By this process the greatest part of the materials constituting soils is formed, and the flora and fauna of the earth are rendered possible. Upon such products of decay the food supply of running water manifestly depends in a large measure, as will be pointed out on our next excursion; and were the scope of this article somewhat larger, it would be easy to show that the rock decay seen in our photograph has taken place in a length of time measured by something like ten thousand years. If all rock decayed as easily, and if the rate of decomposition, as determined here, held good for great distances from the surface, mountains two miles in height would become a prey to the force of chemical action in six and a half million years. We can not, however, give a time equivalent for the destruction of a mountain range, since decay, and consequent disintegration, is only one of the many forces acting to sap the strength of solid rocks and to tear them asunder. The above figures are given merely to make plain that the time necessary to accomplish the leveling of a mountain chain is but a small part of the earth's existence as such, great as this period may seem from the standpoint of human history.

We shall, if possible, time the second excursion immediately after a heavy rain, and we shall select for our objective point a place where the rain water, in its efforts to reach a stream, is forced to run down some steep declivity. Under such circumstances, the carrying power of the water will be very great, and we shall hope to find evidence of its work in transporting the products of rock weathering and other material broken up by the action of frost. A little diligence will soon reward us with the evidence which we seek. A local inequality of the ground, perhaps only a few feet across, is found filled with water—a minute, temporary lake caused by the recent heavy rainfall. Such little water bodies are extremely common, but the accompanying geological phenomena are, notwithstanding, none the less interesting, and the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence thus presented are none the less valuable.

If we examine the pool critically, it will be noticed that its shore line is cut by a little channel along which the overflow makes its escape. Further investigation will show that at another point along the shore, especially if we are fortunate enough to visit the locality very soon after a rain, there is a small rivulet entering the pool; and also that the entering stream is discolored with mud and carries more or less sand, while the escaping stream is nearly clear, and is free from all traces of coarse, sandy material. It is therefore evident that the sediment brought in by the stream has been left behind in the pool, and of course will be found deposited at its bottom, and it will appear that the only explanation of the inability of the water further to transport its burden is to be found in the fact that water loses nearly all its motion, and therefore its transporting power, on entering a stagnant pool. These are elementary truths, but an amplification of such simple phenomena is often fully capable of accounting for the most stupendous results.

Fig. 3.—Temporary Wet-weather Delta.

Having made these observations, let us look at the form assumed by the sediment when it is forced to fall to the bottom. At the point where the stream enters the pool there is seen an accumulation of material having a nearly level upper surface, presenting a scalloped or lobe-shaped outer margin, upon which the stream may be seen flowing and entering the water at one of the lobes. Other channels, though unoccupied by water, also lead to similar lobes. If we watch closely, we may be able to witness the growth of this body of sand, called a delta, as the falling sediment rapidly increases the size of the lobe; and also to perceive that as soon as the lobe is built out considerably in advance of the main body of sand, it will be easier for the stream to enter the water on one side of the scallop, thus abandoning its old mouth. In this manner the stream moves from one place to another, successively building the little scallops and continually carving new channels for itself. Fig. 3 is a photograph of such a delta, some three feet across, taken after the water had been drained away, and reveals its form in a characteristic manner. As we watch its growth, it will become evident that only the coarsest material transported by the stream goes to make up the delta, and that the clay and finest sand are deposited farther away, where the water is more quiet, or else pass out in the stream draining the pool. Let us look about a little. Not far from our miniature lake there are several others. In some the size of the delta is much larger in proportion to the area of the pool than is the case with the one first studied. We find in some cases that the stream has progressively built its delta completely across the old water surface. Taking a thin piece of board or a large knife, we can easily cut vertically through this sand deposit, thus exposing what is called a geological section. The sand grains of which the deposit is largely composed are seen to be arranged in layers nearly horizontal, and these layers are found to be due to alternations of sediment varying in fineness. This phenomenon is called stratification, and is what we should expect of the action of gravity operating on material of different sizes and densities suspended in a body of water. It has been found inexpedient to attempt to show a photograph of this section, owing to the smallness of the subject, but the same phenomena may be observed on a much larger scale in Fig. 5, which will be described below.

A few rods away the stream that feeds the pool has its origin. The sediment carried by the water and going to build up its delta has its source in part in a neighboring bank made up of material derived from solid rock by weathering, similar to that shown on our first excursion, and partly from older water deposits. Steep channels exist in the disintegrated rock, which represent the material removed by the fast-flowing rain water.

Now what geological phenomena have we observed at this locality? In the first place, it has become clear that running water possesses the power of transporting sediment. In the second place, this sediment has been deposited wherever the velocity of the water has been materially checked. The sediment has been laid down in horizontal layers under the influence of gravity. Furthermore, the material of which the delta is composed has been shown, in part at least, to have been derived from a solid rock such as forms our mountains. In our first excursion we saw that chemical change promoted disintegration; in our second, running water is observed seizing upon these products of decay, transporting them and building them into stratified deposits in the first convenient pool. A level-topped delta is first formed, which may or may not grow to fill the pool in which it is born. Some of the pools have become filled, while the delta as such has disappeared; it has grown into a tiny sand plain.

Let us see if the work performed by these temporary rivulets is typical of running water in general. For this purpose we shall visit a spot where a river enters some considerable body of water such as a lake. Let us inspect the river. Its water is sluggish, discolored by organic matter derived from decaying vegetation, and for some distance up stream from its mouth it meanders slowly across a flat, marshy area or meadow. If we also visit the spot at a time when the river is swollen by heavy rains or melting snows, the presence of this organic matter will be masked by the turbidity of the water; we shall learn that only in the freshet seasons does the water attain sufficient velocity to carry any visible load of sand and clay. The upper end of the lake will be found to be shallow, muddy, and water lilies will have discovered congenial surroundings. At another part of the lake the outflowing water appears clear as crystal; the sediment brought in by the river has manifestly been deposited in the lake, as was the case in our little pool. The marsh at the upper end, of course, is merely another delta, slow growing in this instance, grass-covered, but as surely encroaching on the water area as in the earlier examples. When an entering stream is normally of great transporting power, owing to steep slopes down which it rushes, the form of its delta is not unlike the one first described.

With the data already gathered, we can not escape from the conclusion that the growth going on at the head of the lake will in time, if present conditions continue to exist, push its way forward until it has occupied the whole water area. The sediment which is now deposited therein will then be transported across the plain, and will be carried along until another body of water is reached. Further search will bring to light the fact that there are plenty of examples showing all stages between the simple delta and the completely filled lake. The innumerable marshes and meadows which characterize the northern part of the United States are fine examples of lakes which have perished in this manner.

Fig. 4.—A Common Form of Large Delta.

Our next excursion will be made to the locality shown in Fig. 4, which is a sketch of a large delta occurring at a considerable height above the general level of the country, although at the present time the delta is not in vicinity of water.[10] It will be evident to the reader that it differs in no important particular, excepting size, from our little type specimen formed in a pool. Its level top and frontal lobes are to-day nearly as strongly marked as at the time it was made. The reader will have little difficulty in picturing the original conditions of its formation in some ancient lake. This old lake did not endure until the inflowing streams had filled it to a level plain, but for some reason, which it is unnecessary for us to consider, the water was permitted to escape, leaving the delta perched on the valley side. Such deltas are very common, and we find them in all stages, from simple beginnings, as above, to the completed sand plain.

Fig. 5.—Geological Cross-section of a Delta.

The sand of which our first delta was composed has already been referred to as arranged in horizontal layers. In order to verify our conclusions regarding the origin of this delta, let us seek for an opportunity to observe its internal structure, and to compare it with that observed in the first example. It may happen that the opportunity does not exist at this immediate locality, but a little way off a similar deposit occurs, and a beautiful section has been uncovered by the vigorous attacks of a steam shovel. This section has already been referred to on page [464], as illustrating the structure of the sand layers making up the tiny delta, as well as water deposits in general, and is reproduced here as Fig. 5. The reader will observe in this picture many familiar features common to railroad excavations. The upper part of the geological section thus exposed is somewhat masked by a downfall of sand and loam, and the lower part is also hidden by the same materials. Along the central part, however, the sand and gravel may be seen arranged in horizontal layers of a varying thickness. A close inspection of the uppermost layers will detect a variation in coarseness among the different strata. Such alternations of layers of coarse and fine material are due to differences in the transporting power of the running water that brought the sand and pebbles to their present resting place; the coarse gravel and pebbles were carried by fast-flowing rivers, and the fine sand by streams of less rapidity and consequently less transporting power. Beds of this character ordinarily correspond closely in time with alternating periods of great rainfall or snow melting and the summer seasons. The pebbles of which the coarse layers are composed, as we should expect, are far from spherical, and the operation of gravity on such bodies, as they fall to the floor of a lake or ocean, is to cause them to arrange themselves with their flat surfaces horizontal and parallel to one another. In the example before us this fact is apparent, and affords the basis for another line of reasoning by which all such stratified deposits, however great their magnitude, are to be referred to the same source—namely, stream-transported materials derived from a decaying and wasting land surface, laid down in water under the influence of gravity.

We have now arrived at a most important and far-reaching generalization so far as the work performed by running water is concerned, and its action in filling our lakes and ponds; and we have learned by observation on a small scale the means by which such deposits may be recognized. Let us apply these means of recognition to the phenomena shown by our large rivers and the more enduring oceans into which they drain. In the same manner that we have studied the little pool and larger lake, we will look into the work done by the great waterways of our continents, selecting as a type of such streams the mighty Mississippi. Careful measurement has shown that this river annually transports two hundred million tons of sediment mechanically suspended. What becomes of this enormous quantity of sand and clay, equal to a cubic mile in a little over a century, as it is swept into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico? For this purpose we have only to visit the region about its mouth to become acquainted with the almost impotent struggles that have been made by our Government during the last fifty years in an effort to keep the river below New Orleans, in part at least, confined to its present channels; and to study the chart of that portion of the Gulf coast prepared by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (see Fig. 6). We have not forgotten the little lobes; their method of growth, and the general form of our first-seen delta, shown in Fig. 3. In viewing the phenomena at the mouth of the Mississippi, it is no longer necessary for our present purposes to make a detailed study, since it will become apparent at once that the river is doing the work on a larger scale typified by the performance of the tiny stream flowing into its temporary pool. In place of the little delta with its still smaller lobes, the Mississippi has deposited at its mouth an enormous delta, thousands of square miles in area, and its bifurcating arms may be seen building out several scallops for miles into the waters of the gulf. For centuries these long lobes have been building in advance of the delta front. The arms gradually become clogged with sediment, a new passage to the ocean is opened on the sides, where deposition will begin at a new point, producing a lobe as before. Situated many miles up the river, it is to-day the great fear of New Orleans that its only navigable arm to the sea will thus be closed to that commerce upon which the life of the city depends.

Fig. 6.—The Delta of the Mississippi.

Only a portion of the sediment brought in by the river goes to form its delta; a large part of the finest material, such as clay, is transported by temporary and permanent currents thousands of miles away, where it is deposited in the more quiet waters of the ocean. In this manner the Mississippi has been shown to deposit a cubic mile of mechanically transported material in a little over a century. What shall we say of the effects produced on the continents and oceans by thousands of rivers, each doing its proportionate share of work and acting through millions of years? Two main results must follow, unless interruptions occur: the lower elevations and the magnificent mountain ranges, which rear their lofty heads above the permanent snow line, will be divided into minor peaks; valleys will be carved out; the whole land surface will slowly waste away, at first rapidly, at last slowly, and be transported to the oceans, where it will form great horizontal beds differing in no essential particular, excepting size, from those shown in Fig. 5—great deposits that are merely deltas on a large scale. The geologist, however, finds no evidence to indicate that at any time in the earth's history have these theoretical results taken place. Land masses, of continental dimensions, have not been allowed thus to waste entirely away to a general flatness on account of the interruptions caused by elevation—the bodily lifting of great areas of rock, even out of the ocean floor, to become mountains or plateaus, in some cases higher than any point in this country. If our observations thus far and those yet to be made serve to make this clear, one of the objects of this article will have been accomplished. It is to be hoped that our observations have made plain the processes of rock disintegration and water transportation; that in the oceans all these materials are eventually deposited in beds horizontally arranged, composed of such products of decay in the condition of sand and mud. We have only to point out the proof that great land masses, composed of water-deposited materials, have been lifted from the ocean to become continents and mountain ranges.

As the ocean deposits slowly accumulate in layers to beds of many thousands of feet in thickness, the lower parts are gradually subjected to greatly increased pressure produced by the overlying beds. During this time waters of a varying temperature, carrying, chemically dissolved, great quantities of lime, silica, and iron oxide, are allowed free circulation through them. These conditions promote chemical change: much silica (the mineral quartz), lesser amounts of carbonate of lime (the mineral calcite), and iron oxide are precipitated about the loose sand grains, firmly cementing them together into a solid rock. A cycle has thus been completed; the dense rocks composing a continent have passed by the process of weathering into incoherent sand and clay, which, when transported to the ocean floor, become again converted into solid rock.

Historical records prove that during the last three thousand years there have taken place many changes in the ocean's level. Old islands have disappeared; new ones have emerged above the surface of the water. Great stretches of seacoast exist at the present time which within the historical period have been covered by the ocean. Even at the present writing we are witnessing the gradual submergence of some parts of the earth and the rising of others; terraces on the northern Atlantic coast may be seen along the hillsides many feet above the present level of the ocean—all of which go to show that the relationship of the land to the water is an unstable one. These are the evidences of continental growth and depressions from the historical standpoint, and the validity of the data upon which the belief is founded can not be shaken. The evidence from the geological side is overwhelming, but before we speak of this it will be well once more to say a word as to the causes of continental uplift.

From an original fluid globe possessing a high temperature, the earth has now cooled down to a degree sufficiently low to permit the formation of a thick rock crust. Underneath this crust an approach to the old surface temperatures is still maintained, and the existence of a certain degree of fluidity is demonstrated to us from time to time by the phenomenon of volcanism. Successive zones of cooling took place. The outer part could only conform to a shrinking interior by wrinkling, folding, or bodily lifting considerable areas above the general level. An adjustment of strains thus set up would take place either with or without folding of the strata. These initial wrinkles gave rise to our first mountains, and the continuation of these conditions at the present time is as surely nourishing mountain growth as at any time in the past. In this way the fluctuations of the ocean's level, above referred to, alone are to be explained, and such form but temporary rises and falls in the history of a continent.

Fig. 7.—Mountain showing Rock Folding.

The rate at which an ocean bed is raised to form a mountain range is, no doubt, a variable one; always slow, often interrupted, but seldom or never violent. During this time the strata usually undergo crushing and folding; stretching takes place, and displacements of the rocks, or faulting, are not uncommon. As an example of the wrinkling that the strata may suffer under these conditions, the reader is referred to the beautiful symmetrical fold shown on the side of a mountain in the Appalachians (Fig. 7). Similar folding is the rule, but often immense areas are raised to great heights above the ocean without disturbing the horizontal position of the beds (see Fig. 8). Coincident with the emergence of the rocks from beneath the water, there begin the attacks of the forces operating to destroy them. Hand in hand there go on growth and destruction. The two may keep an even pace; either may obtain the mastery. In the one case, lack of considerable elevation and flatness result; in the other, great altitudes may be attained. The rivers may cut their valleys downward as fast as the land rises, or the down-cutting may be relatively slower. In any case, after a given land mass has attained its greatest height above the sea, the larger rivers soon cut their channels down as far as river cutting is possible—namely, to within a few feet of sea level. With relatively rapid elevation, soft rocks, and large rivers, the resultant valley takes the form of a cañon, examples of which are found along the courses of the Colorado and the Yellowstone Rivers (see Fig. 8).[11] Valleys of this nature soon lose their steep sides by the action of weathering and all that this implies, and pass into a more open state, like that shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 8.—Horizontal Rocks, Grand Cañon of the Colorado.

These views have been selected in order that a comparison of this type of mountain structure may be made with that shown in Fig. 6. The points of resemblance between the two sections exposed, one by a steam shovel, the other by river action, are the horizontal position of the strata and the alternations of beds of unlike character. The differences are mainly that the beds making up the mountain show that they are built up of alternating layers of sand (now converted into a sandstone) and clay (now in the condition of a slate). Are not these the products of a decayed continent? Is their position to be explained otherwise than along the lines already stated? Our only difficulty in readily accepting this conclusion is founded on a hereditary belief, born in ignorance and nourished to maturity by superstition, that the earth came into existence as we see it to-day, the surface dissected by valleys in which the rivers find established courses to the sea; possessing a multiplicity of highland and lowland, granite mountains and marble hills, as a result of some plan carried into effect as a creative act. Science has revealed the impossibility of this interpretation. Considered in the light of evolution, acting through an immense period of time, by means of the processes already enumerated, the diversity of land form is made plain to us, and the ever-varying characters of rock structure and composition are in the main made easy of comprehension. Viewed in the light of the foregoing pages, and illustrating as they do land form and the greater part of the earth's crust, the rock structures revealed on the sides of the mountains and cañons, as well as the broader valley itself, take on a new and more intelligent interest. High and enduring as the mountains may appear, resistant as their solid rocks may seem, they are doomed as mountains to the same fate that their own structure and composition prove to have overtaken earlier mountains before them.

Fig. 9.—Mount Stephen, showing its Horizontal Rocks.

The earth has known no cessation in this cycle of decay, deposition, and elevation; again and again have continental masses been raised from the ocean floor only to become a prey to the forces that destroy them. These cycles will continue—mountain ranges will fade away and new ones will be born. A more permanent relationship between the lowland, the upland, and the ocean level will never be attained until the forces that warp and wrinkle the earth's crust shall have ceased forever.

M. Henri Bourget, of the Toulouse (France) Observatory, has called attention in Nature to a common phenomenon which he believes has not been mentioned in any scientific book. If one end of a bar of metal is heated, but not enough to make the other end too hot to be held in the hand, and then suddenly cooled, the temperature of the other end will rise till the hand can not bear it. All workmen who have occasion to handle and heat pieces of metal, he says, know this.

DEATH GULCH, A NATURAL BEAR-TRAP.

By T.A. Jaggar, Jr., Ph.D.

Cases of asphyxiation by gas have been very frequently reported of late years, and we commonly associate with such reports the idea of a second-rate hotel and an unsophisticated countryman who blows out the gas. Such incidents we connect with the supercivilization of the nineteenth century, but it is none the less true that Nature furnishes similar accidents, and that in regions far remote from the haunts of men. In the heart of the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, unknown to either the tourist or the trapper, there is a natural hostelry for the wild inhabitants of the forest, where, with food, drink, and shelter all in sight, the poor creatures are tempted one after another into a bath of invisible poisonous vapor, where they sink down to add their bones to the fossil records of an interminable list of similar tragedies, dating back to a period long preceding the records of human history.

It was the writer's privilege, as a member of the expedition of the United States Geological Survey of the Yellowstone Park, under the direction of Mr. Arnold Hague, to visit and for the first time to photograph this remarkable locality. A similar visit was last made by members of the survey in the summer of 1888, and an account of the discovery of Death Gulch was published in Science (February 15, 1889) under the title A Deadly Gas Spring in the Yellowstone Park, by Mr. Walter Harvey Weed. The following extracts from Mr. Weed's paper indicate concisely the general character of the gulch, and the description of the death-trap as it then appeared offers interesting material for comparison with its condition as observed in the summer of 1897.

Death Gulch is a small and gloomy ravine in the northeast corner of the Yellowstone National Park. "In this region the lavas which fill the ancient basin of the park rest upon the flanks of mountains formed of fragmentary volcanic ejecta, ... while the hydrothermal forces of the central portion of the park show but feeble manifestations of their energy in the almost extinct hot-spring areas of Soda Butte, Lamar River, Cache Creek, and Miller Creek." Although hot water no longer flows from these vents, "gaseous emanations are now given off in considerable volume." On Cache Creek, about two miles above its confluence with Lamar River, are deposits of altered and crystalline travertine, with pools in the creek violently effervescing locally. This is due to the copious emission of gas. Above these deposits "the creek cuts into a bank of sulphur and gravel cemented by this material, and a few yards beyond is the débouchure of a small lateral gully coming down from the mountainside. In its bottom is a small stream of clear and cold water, sour with sulphuric acid, and flowing down a narrow and steep channel cut in beds of dark-gray volcanic tuff. Ascending this gulch, the sides, closing together, become very steep slopes of white, decomposed rock.... The only springs now flowing are small oozes of water issuing from the base of these slopes, or from the channel bed, forming a thick, creamy, white deposit about the vents, and covering the stream bed. This deposit consists largely of sulphate of alumina.... About one hundred and fifty feet above the main stream these oozing springs of acid water cease, but the character of the gulch remains the same. The odor of sulphur now becomes stronger, though producing no other effect than a slight irritation of the lungs.

"The gulch ends, or rather begins, in a scoop or basin about two hundred and fifty feet above Cache Creek, and just below this was found the fresh body of a large bear, a silver-tip grizzly, with the remains of a companion in an advanced stage of decomposition above him. Near by were the skeletons of four more bears, with the bones of an elk a yard or two above, while in the bottom of the pocket were the fresh remains of several squirrels, rock hares, and other small animals, besides numerous dead butterflies and insects. The body of the grizzly was carefully examined for bullet holes or other marks of injury, but showed no traces of violence, the only indication being a few drops of blood under the nose. It was evident that he had met his death but a short time before, as the carcass was still perfectly fresh, though offensive enough at the time of a later visit. The remains of a cinnamon bear just above and alongside of this were in an advanced state of decomposition, while the other skeletons were almost denuded of flesh, though the claws and much of the hair remained. It was apparent that these animals, as well as the squirrels and insects, had not met their death by violence, but had been asphyxiated by the irrespirable gas given off in the gulch. The hollows were tested for carbonic-acid gas with lighted tapers without proving its presence, but the strong smell of sulphur, and a choking sensation of the lungs, indicated the presence of noxious gases, while the strong wind prevailing at the time, together with the open nature of the ravine, must have caused a rapid diffusion of the vapors.

"This place differs, therefore, very materially from the famous Death Valley of Java and similar places, in being simply a V-shaped trench, not over seventy-five feet deep, cut in the mountain slope, and not a hollow or cave. That the gas at times accumulates in the pocket at the head of the gulch is, however, proved by the dead squirrels, etc., found on its bottom. It is not probable, however, that the gas ever accumulates here to a considerable depth, owing to the open nature of the place, and the fact that the gulch draining it would carry off the gas, which would, from its density, tend to flow down the ravine. This offers an explanation of the death of the bears, whose remains occur not in this basin, but where it narrows to form the ravine, for it is here that the layer of gas would be deepest, and has proved sufficient to suffocate the first bear, who was probably attracted by the remains of the elk, or perhaps of the smaller victims of the invisible gas; and he, in turn, has doubtless served as bait for others who have in turn succumbed. Though the gulch has doubtless served as a death-trap for a very long period of time, these skeletons and bodies must be the remains of only the most recent victims, for the ravine is so narrow and the fall so great that the channel must be cleared out every few years, if not annually. The change wrought by the water during a single rainstorm, which occurred in the interval between Mr. Weed's first and second visits, was so considerable that it seems probable that the floods of early spring, when the snows are melting under the hot sun of this region, must be powerful enough to wash everything down to the cone of débris at the mouth of the gulch." Mr. Arnold Hague, on the occasion of his visit, was more successful in obtaining evidence of the presence of carbonic-dioxide gas. He writes: "The day I went up the ravine I was able in two places to extinguish a long brown paper taper. The day I was there it was very calm, and where I made the test the water was trickling down a narrow gorge shut in by shelving rocks above."

It was at noon on the 22d of July in the summer of 1897 that we made camp near the mouth of Cache Creek, about three miles southeast of the military post and mail station of Soda Butte. In company with Dr. Francis P. King I at once started up the creek, keeping the left bank, that we might not miss the gulch, which joins the valley of Cache Creek from the southern side. We had a toilsome climb through timber and over steep embankments, cut by the creek in a loose conglomerate, and after going about a mile and a half we noticed that some of these banks were stained with whitish and yellow deposits of alum and sulphur, indicating that we were nearing the old hot-spring district. Soon a caved-in cone of travertine was seen, with crystalline calcite and sulphur in the cavities, and the bed of the creek was more or less completely whitened by these deposits, while here and there could be seen along the banks oozing "paint-pots" of calcareous mud, in one case inky black, with deposits of varicolored salts about its rim, and a steady ebullition of gas bubbles rising from the bottom. In other cases these pools were crystal clear, and always cold. The vegetation, which below had been dense close to the creek's bank, here became more scanty, especially on the southern side, where the bare rock was exposed and seen to be a volcanic breccia, much decomposed and stained with solfataric deposits. A mound of coarse débris seen just above on this side indicated the presence of a lateral ravine, which from its situation and character we decided was probably the gulch sought for. A strong odor of sulphureted hydrogen had been perceptible for some time, and when we entered the gully the fumes became oppressive, causing a heavy burning sensation in the throat and lungs. The ravine proved to be as described, a V-shaped trench cut in the volcanic rock, about fifty feet in depth, with very steep bare whitish slopes, narrowing to a stony rill bed that ascended steeply back into the mountain side.

General View, looking downstream, of Lower Part of Death Gulch.

Climbing through this trough, a frightfully weird and dismal place, utterly without life, and occupied by only a tiny streamlet and an appalling odor, we at length discovered some brown furry masses lying scattered about the floor of the ravine about a quarter of a mile from the point where we had left Cache Creek. Approaching cautiously, it became quickly evident that we had before us a large group of huge recumbent bears; the one nearest to us was lying with his nose between his paws, facing us, and so exactly like a huge dog asleep that it did not seem possible that it was the sleep of death. To make sure, I threw a pebble at the animal, striking him on the flank; the distended skin resounded like a drumhead, and the only response was a belch of poisonous gas that almost overwhelmed us. Closer examination showed that the animal was a young silver-tip grizzly (Ursus horribilis); a few drops of thick, dark-red blood stained his nostrils and the ground beneath. There proved to be five other carcasses, all bears, in various stages of decay; careful search revealed oval areas of hair and bones that represented two other bears, making a total of eight carcasses in all. Seven were grizzlies, one was a cinnamon bear (Ursus americanus). One huge grizzly was so recent a victim that his tracks were still visible in the white, earthy slopes, leading down to the spot where he had met his death. In no case were any marks of violence seen, and there can be no question that death was occasioned by the gas. The wind was blowing directly up the ravine during our visit, and we failed to get any test for carbonic acid, though we exhausted all our matches in the effort, plunging the flames into hollows of the rill bed in various parts of its course; they invariably burned brightly, and showed not the slightest tendency to extinguish. The dilution of the gas in such a breeze would be inevitable, however; that the gas was present was attested by the peculiar oppression on the lungs that was felt during the entire period that we were in the gulch, and which only wore off gradually on our return to camp. I suffered from a slight headache in consequence for several hours.

Looking down the Gulch—the Latest Victim, a Large Silver-Tip Grizzly.

There was no difference in the appearance of the portion of the gulch where the eight bears had met their end and the region above and below. A hundred yards or more up stream the solfataric deposits become less abundant, and the timber grows close to the brook; a short distance beyond this the gulch ends. No bodies were found above, and only bears were found in the locality described. It will be observed that Weed's experience differs in this respect from ours, and the appearance of the place was somewhat different: he found elk and small animals in addition to the bears, and describes the death-trap as occupying the mouth of the basin at the head of the gulch, above the point where the last springs of acid water cease. The rill observed by us has its source far above the animals; indeed, it trickles directly through the worm-eaten carcass of the cinnamon bear—a thought by no means comforting when we realized that the water supply for our camp was drawn from the creek only a short distance down the valley.

It is not impossible that there may be two or three of these gullies having similar properties. That we should have found only bears may perhaps be accounted for on the ground that the first victim for this season was a bear, and his carcass frightened away all animals except those of his own family. For an illustration of a process of accumulation of the bones of large vertebrates, with all the conditions present necessary for fossilization, no finer example can be found in the world than Death Gulch; year after year the snow slides and spring floods wash down this fresh supply of entrapped carcasses to be buried in the waste cones and alluvial bottoms of Cache Creek and Lamar River. Probably the stream-formed conglomerate that we noted as we ascended the creek is locally filled with these remains.

The gas is probably generated by the action of the acid water on the ancient limestones that here underlie the lavas at no great depth; outcrops of these limestones occur only a few miles away at the mouth of Soda Butte Creek. This gas must emanate from fissures in the rock just above the bears, and on still nights it may accumulate to a depth of two or three feet in the ravine, settling in a heavy, wavy stratum, and probably rolling slowly down the bed of the rill into the valley below. The accompanying photographs were made during our visit.

THE LABOR PROBLEM IN THE TROPICS.

By W. ALLEYNE IRELAND.

A great deal of space has been devoted in American magazines and newspapers recently to the question of how this country has become a colonial power. Destiny and duty, strength and weakness, accident and design, honesty and corruption have been called on by writers, singly and in various combinations, to bear the responsibility of the new departure in the national policy.

Whatever interest such speculations may possess for the student who seeks to discover in the events of history some indication of the evolution of national character, there can be little doubt that the eyes of the people at large are turned in another direction.

What are our new possessions worth? is the question which intelligent men of all classes are beginning to ask; and it is not surprising, in view of the comparative isolation of this country in the past, that there are few who have sufficient confidence in their own opinion to answer the query.

In England, whose colonial and Indian empire embraces nearly one fourth of the population of the globe, there is an astounding lack of knowledge in relation to colonial affairs; and those who follow the debates in the House of Commons will have noticed that when the colonies are the subject under discussion the few members who remain in their seats seldom fail to exhibit a degree of ignorance which must be most disheartening to the able and learned Colonial Secretary.

It is not to be wondered at, then, that in the United States, where the people have been too much occupied with the problems continually arising at home to pay any attention to affairs which, until very recently, have appeared entirely outside the range of practical politics, there should be few men who have given their time to that careful study of tropical colonization which alone can impart any value to opinions in regard to the practical issues involved in the colonial expansion of this country. Discussion of the subject has been almost entirely along the line of the possible effects of the new policy on the political institutions and popular ideals of the United States, and little has been written which may be said to throw any light on the problem of tropical colonization per se.

A residence of ten years in the tropical colonies of France, Spain, Holland, and Great Britain—a period during which I devoted much time to the study of colonial affairs—leaves me of opinion that there are two points in regard to which discussion is peculiarly opportune: 1. The value of the Philippines and Puerto Rico as a field for the cultivation of those tropical products which are consumed in the temperate zones. 2. The value of the islands as a market for products and manufactures of the temperate zones.

It will at once be seen that only in so far as the islands are valuable in the former respect can they be important in the latter, for in the absence of production there can not be any considerable consumption of commodities.

The first point to be considered, and it is the one to which I shall confine myself in the present article, is by what means the productive possibilities of Puerto Rico and the Philippines can be developed.

Basing my calculation on official reports covering a number of years, I find that the average value per capita of the annual exports of native products from a number of tropical colonies selected by me for the purpose of this inquiry is as follows:

An examination of these figures will serve to show that the value of the colonies in the first column, measured by the standard of their productiveness, is three times that of the colonies in the second column. Reference to the population returns of the colonies named discloses the fact that in the colonies in the first column the population contains a very large proportion of imported contract laborers and their descendants, while in the other colonies practically the whole population is home-born for at least two generations.

A moment's reflection will show the importance of the comparison instituted above, and if the space at my command permitted a more extensive analysis of the trade of tropical colonies, it could be demonstrated that the theory holds good, almost without exception, that of tropical countries those only are commercially valuable in which a system of imported contract labor is in force.

There are one or two colonies (Barbados is the most striking example) in which the pressure of population is so great that the labor supply suffices for the utmost development of which the country is capable; but such instances are rare.

The experience of England in governing tropical colonies is frequently cited by those who favor the so-called imperial policy for the United States as a proof that tropical colonization in itself presents no difficulties which can not be overcome by enlightened administration. It would be difficult to point out in just what manner Great Britain derives any benefit from her tropical possessions, but her experience confirms the theory I have stated above—that the commercial development of tropical colonies is possible only where there is an extraordinary density of population or where a system of imported contract labor is in force.

A glance through the list of Great Britain's tropical colonies will serve to prove the correctness of this theory. Imported contract labor is used in British Guiana, Trinidad, Jamaica, Queensland, the Fiji Islands, the Straits Settlements, and Mauritius; while the pressure of population is extreme in Lagos and Barbados, which support respectively 1,333 and 1,120 persons to the square mile.

The remaining tropical colonies of Great Britain—using the term "tropical colony" in its strictest sense—are the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Hongkong, St. Helena, British Honduras, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts-Nevis, Dominica, Montserrat, and a few islands in the Pacific which are insignificant commercially.

A careful examination of the British trade returns shows that the total export and import trade between the United Kingdom and all the British tropical colonies in 1896 reached a value of $146,000,000, and that of this sum $121,000,000 represented trade with the tropical colonies which employ imported contract labor and with Lagos and Barbados. In other words, the trade between the United Kingdom and those British tropical colonies where free labor is used and where there is no great pressure of population made up less than eighteen per cent of the total trade with the British tropical colonies.

It would appear from the facts I have given that the commercial development of those parts of the tropics where the population is sparse will be dependent on the importation of labor from more densely peopled areas.

If the question is approached from an entirely different standpoint the necessity of contract labor in the tropics becomes more strikingly apparent. The development of the tropics will be in the direction of agriculture rather than manufacturing, and the requirements of tropical agriculture in respect of labor are most arbitrary. It is not sufficient that the labor supply is ample, in the ordinary sense of the word; it must be at all times immediately available.

Thus, a mine owner whose men go out on strike is, briefly, placed in this position: He will lose a sum of money somewhat larger than the amount of profit he could have made during the period of the strike had it not occurred. His coal, however, is still there, and is not less valuable—indeed, in the case of a prolonged strike, may actually be more valuable—when the strike is over; work can easily be resumed where it was dropped, and during the idle days the ordinary running expenses of the mine cease. The greater part of the loss sustained in the instance I have supposed is not out-of-pocket loss, but merely the failure to realize prospective profits.

On the other hand, a sugar estate in the tropics spends about eight months out of the twelve in cultivating the crop, and the remaining four in reaping and boiling operations. By the time the crop is ready to reap many thousands of dollars have been expended on it by way of planting, weeding, draining, and the application of nitrogenous manures. If from any cause the labor supply fails when the cutting of the canes is about to commence, every cent expended on the crop is wasted; and if for want of labor the canes which are cut are not transported within a few hours to the mills, they turn sour and can not be made into sugar. It will thus be seen that in the case of sugar-growing a perfectly reliable labor supply is the first requisite.

The same might be said of the cultivation of tea, coffee, cocoa, spices, and tropical fruits.

This problem—the securing of a reliable labor supply—has been solved in the case of several of the tropical possessions of England by the importation of East Indian laborers under contract to serve for a fixed period on the plantations.

As, in my opinion, the East Indian contract laborer will play an important part in the development of the tropics, I describe in detail the most perfect system of contract labor with which I am acquainted, that existing at the present time in the colony of British Guiana. The system of imported indentured labor which is in force in many of the British colonies has been referred to frequently, both in this country and in England, as "slavery," "semislavery," "the new slavery." The use of such terms to describe such a system indicates a complete ignorance of the facts. As some of the best-informed journals in this country, in noticing my writings on tropical subjects, have fallen into this error, I hope that the description I give here, which is based on several years' experience of the actual working of the system, will serve to convince the readers of this article that the indenture of the East Indian coolie in the British colonies is no more a form of slavery than is any contract entered into between an employer and an employee in this country.

When the British Guiana planter was informed by the home Government in 1834 that four years later slavery would be entirely abolished throughout the British Empire, he foresaw at once that unless a new source of labor was thrown open a very short time would elapse before the cane fields would fall out of cultivation. He listened, not without some irritation, to the assurances of the agents of the Antislavery Society that as soon as the slaves were freed they would work with redoubled energy, and that the labor supply, instead of deteriorating, would, in fact, improve. The planters knew better, and began at once to arrange for the importation of contract labor. With the year 1834 began the period of apprenticeship for the slaves, prior to their complete emancipation four years later.

During this time, and before the imported labor sufficed for the needs of the plantations, several estates were ruined and fell out of cultivation because the apprenticed laborers would not work.

On October 11, 1838, the governor of the colony, Henry Light, Esquire, issued a proclamation to the freed slaves. The proclamation stated that the governor had learned with regret that the labor of the freed slaves was irregular; that their masters could not depend on them; that they worked one day and idled the next; that when they had earned enough to fill their bellies they lay down to sleep or idled away their time; that they left their tasks unfinished, and then expected to be paid in full for them.

In the meanwhile the planters imported labor from the West Indian Islands, Malta, Madeira, China, and Germany; and eventually the system of immigration from India was organized.

The system is under the control of the Indian Council in Calcutta on the one hand and the British Guiana Government and the Colonial Office on the other. In Georgetown, the capital of the colony, is the immigration department, under the management of the immigration agent general, who has under him a staff of inspectors, subagents, clerks, and interpreters, all of whom must speak at least one Indian dialect. In Calcutta resides the emigration agent general, also an official of the British Guiana Government, who has under him a staff of medical officers, recruiting agents, and clerks.

Each year the planters of British Guiana send in requisitions to the immigration department stating the number of immigrants required for the following year. These requisitions are examined by the agent general, and if, in his opinion, any estate demands more coolies than the extent of its cultivation justifies, the number is reduced. As soon as the full number is decided on, the agent in Calcutta is informed, and the process of recruiting commences. The laborers are secured entirely by voluntary enlistment. The recruiting agents go about the country and explain the terms offered by the British Guiana planters, and those men and women who express their willingness to enter into a contract are sent down to Calcutta at the expense of the colony.

On arrival in Calcutta they are provided with free food and quarters at the emigration depot until such time as a sufficient number are assembled to form a full passenger list for a transport. During the period of waiting, which may extend to several weeks, a careful medical inspection of the laborers is made, and all those who may be deemed unfit for the work of the estates are sent back to their homes at the expense of the colony. Prior to embarkation the coolies are called up in batches of fifteen or twenty, and the emigration agent or a local magistrate reads over to them in their own language the terms of the indenture. Each one is then given an indenture ticket on which the terms of indenture are printed in three dialects. The agent general affixes his signature to each ticket; and a special provision in the laws of British Guiana makes his signature binding on the planters who employ the coolies. The ticket thus constitutes a contract valid as against either party in the courts of the colony.

The coolies have the right to carry with them any children they may wish, and those under twelve years of age are exempt from indenture. The transportation is effected in sailing vessels, which are for the time being Government transports. The reason why steamers are not employed is that sailing vessels are found to be much healthier, and that the long sea voyage has an excellent effect on the immigrants. The regulations governing the voyage are very strict. As far as the coolies are concerned, the ship is in charge of a medical officer. The captain of the ship, the officers, and the crew are all under the command of the doctor, except in so far as the actual sailing of the vessel is in question. The vessel has ample hospital accommodation, a complete dispensary in charge of a qualified dispenser, and all the arrangements must be passed by a Government inspector before the ship is given her clearance. The food to be furnished during the voyage is specified by law. The bill of fare consists chiefly of bread, butter, rice, curry, sago, condensed milk, and fresh mutton, a number of sheep being carried on the ship.

Every morning and evening the doctor makes an inspection of the vessel, and enters in his log-book all essential details, such as births, deaths, cases treated in the hospital, and so forth.

On arrival in the colony the coolies are allotted to the different estates. The coolie is bound to remain for five years on the plantation to which he is allotted, and to work during that time five days a week, the day's work being seven hours. In return for this the planter must furnish him with a house free of rent, and built in such a way as to meet the requirements of the inspector of immigrants' dwellings in regard to ventilation, size, and water supply; and no immigrants are sent to any estate until these houses have been inspected and passed as satisfactory. The planter must also furnish on the estate free hospital accommodation and medical attendance, and in addition provide free education for the children of indentured immigrants.

The medical officers are Government servants, and the colony is divided into districts, each of which has its own doctor, who is compelled by law to visit each estate in his district at least once in forty-eight hours and examine and prescribe for all immigrants presenting themselves at the hospital.

The planter is further bound to pay a minimum daily wage of twenty-four cents to each man and sixteen cents to each woman. This appears at first sight a very small sum, but when it is taken into account that a coolie can live well on eight cents a day it will be seen that the wage is three times the living expense, a rate very rarely paid to agricultural laborers in any part of the world.

That the coolies do, in fact, save considerable sums of money will be seen when the statistics of the immigration department are examined. These records show that during the years 1870 to 1896 38,793 immigrants returned to India after completing their terms of indenture, and that they carried back with them to their native land over $2,800,000. At the end of 1896 there were over five thousand East Indian depositors in the British Guiana Government Savings Bank and the Post-Office Savings Bank, with a total sum of more than $450,000 to their credit.

At the end of five years the indentured coolie becomes absolutely free. He may cease work, or, if he prefer it, remain on the estates as a free laborer. The whole colony is open to him, and he may engage in any trade or profession for which he may be fitted. If he remains for five years longer in the colony, even though he be idle during the whole of that time, he becomes entitled to a grant of land from the Government. The law in this respect has been recently changed. All coolies who came to the colony prior to 1898 have the choice at the end of ten years of a free grant of land or an assisted passage back to their native place.

It may be objected by those persons who are unacquainted with the system that all this sounds very well on paper, but that the opportunities for fraud and oppression must be very frequent, and, human nature being what it is, very frequently taken advantage of, to the injury of the coolies' interests. Such charges have, in fact, been made from time to time, but they have, on investigation, proved to be unfounded, or, at the worst, highly exaggerated. The treatment of the indentured immigrants in British Guiana was the subject of a Royal commission of inquiry in 1870. The appointment of the commission followed a series of charges made by a certain Mr. Des Voeux, a magistrate in the colony, in a letter to Earl Granville, at that time Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The commission visited the colony and conducted a most searching inquiry. Hundreds of witnesses were examined, and the commissioners visited several estates, without giving any warning of their intentions, and questioned many of the coolies as to their treatment. Mr. Des Voeux entirely failed to substantiate his charges; and Sir Clinton Murdoch, the chairman of the emigration board—a permanent department of the Colonial Office—in referring to the report of the commission in a blue book issued in 1872, said: "It may, I think, be considered that the report of the commissioners is generally satisfactory, both as regards the magistracy, the planters, and the immigrants. Many defects in the system and mode of working it are no doubt pointed out, but they are defects caused by errors of judgment, by insufficiency of the law, or by want of foresight, not by intentional neglect or indifference to the well-being of the people, still less by oppression or cruelty. The vindication of the magistracy and of the medical officers appears to be complete, and the fair dealing and kindness of the managers toward the immigrants is acknowledged."

The laws have been amended, the Government inspection has been made more complete, and to-day it is impossible that any abuse of power on the part of the planters can pass unnoticed.

To give an instance of the effectiveness of the Government supervision—each estate is compelled by law to keep pay lists according to a form specified by the immigration department, in which the name of each indentured immigrant must be entered with a record of each separate day's work during the five years of the indenture. Thus, if the pay list shows that in a certain week a man worked only two days out of the legal five, it must also show the reason why he did not work on the other three days. It may have been that the man was in the hospital, in which case the letter "H" must appear opposite his name for those days; or he may have been granted leave of absence, when the letter "L" would account for him. These pay lists are inspected by a Government officer twice a month, and any faults disclosed by the examination become the subject of a severe reprimand from the agent general, followed in the case of persistent neglect by the cutting off of the supply of coolies.

So minute are the records of the immigration department that were an application made to the agent general for information regarding some particular indentured coolie, that official could without difficulty supply the name of the man's father and mother, his caste, age, native place, with the same information in regard to the man's wife. He could also make out an account showing every day the man had worked during the term of his indenture, and the reasons why he had not worked on the other days, with the exact amount earned on each working day. In addition to this he could state how many days the man had spent in the estate's hospital and what was the matter with him on those occasions, besides furnishing a copy of every prescription made up for the man in the estate's dispensary.

A striking evidence of the desire of the Government to protect the coolies from ill treatment of any kind is afforded by the rule of the immigration department that, if any overseer on an estate is convicted of an offense against an indentured immigrant, the dismissal of the offender is demanded, and each estate in the colony is warned that if it employ the man the supply of immigrants will be cut off.

The coolies are given every facility to complain of ill-treatment or breach of contract on the part of the planters, for, in addition to the opportunity afforded by the regular visits of the subagents, the right is secured to them by law of leaving any estate without permission in order to visit the agent general or the nearest magistrate; and either of these officials has the power to issue all process of law free of cost to any coolie who satisfies him that there is a prima facie cause of complaint.

Such, in brief, are the features of the East Indian immigration system of British Guiana.[12]

Those who approach the question of the labor supply for the American colonies with an unprejudiced mind will see that there is nothing in the system I have described which is at variance with the principles of the American people.

All that is required to make such a system a boon both to the employer and to the laborer is that the officials charged with the inspection of the system and the protection of the immigrants' interests should be intelligent, honest, and fearless in the discharge of their duties.

PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION.

By the Late Hon. DAVID A. WELLS.

XX.—THE LAW OF THE DIFFUSION OF TAXES.

PART II.

Attention is next asked to an analysis of the incidence of taxation, what is mainly direct, on processes and products, and on the machinery by which one is effected and the other distributed, and at the outset the following propositions in the nature of economic axioms are submitted, which it is believed will serve as stepping stones to the attainment of broad generalizations.

Thus, property is solely produced to supply human wants and desires; and taxes form an important part of the cost of all production, distribution, and consumption, and represent the labor performed in guarding and protecting property at the expense of the State, in all the processes of development and transformation. The State is thus an active and important partner in all production. Without its assistance and protection, production would be impeded or wholly arrested. The soldier or policeman guards, while the citizen performs his labor in safety. As a partner in all the forms of production and business, the State must pay its expenses—i.e., its agents, for their services; and its only means of paying are through its receipts from taxation. Taxes, then, are clearly items of expense in all business, the same as rent, fuel, cost of material, light, labor, waste, insurance, clerical service, advertising, expressage, freight, and the like, and on business principles they find their place on the pages of profit and loss; and, like all other expenses which enter into the cost of production, must finally be sustained by those who gratify their wants or desires by consumption. Production is only a means, and consumption is the end, and the consumer must pay in the end all the expenses of production. Every dealer in domestic or imported merchandise keeps on hand, at all times, upon his shelves, a stock of different and accumulated taxes—customs, internal revenue, State, school, and municipal—with his goods; and when we buy and carry away from any store or shop an article, we buy and carry away with it the accompanying and inherential taxes.

Any primary taxpayer, who does not ultimately consume the thing taxed, and who does not include the tax in the price of the taxed property or its products, must literally throw away his money and must soon become bankrupt and disappear as a competitor; and accordingly the tax advancer will add the tax in his prices if he understands simple addition. How rapidly bankruptcy would befall dealers in imported goods, wares, and merchandise in the United States who did not strictly observe this rule will be realized when one remembers that the average tax imposed by its Government (in 1896) on all dutiable imports is in excess of fifty per cent.

When Dr. Franklin was asked by a committee of the English House of Commons, prior to the American Revolution, if the province of Pennsylvania did not practically relieve farmers and other landowners from taxation, and at the same time impose a heavy tax on merchants, to the injury of British trade, he answered that "if such special tax was imposed, the merchants were experts with their pens, and added the tax to the price of their goods, and thus made the farmers and all landowners pay their part of the tax as consumers."

Taxes uniformly levied on all the subjects of taxation, and which are not so excessive as to become a prohibition on the use of the thing taxed, become, therefore, a part of the cost of all production, distribution, and consumption, and diffuse and equate themselves by natural laws in the same manner and in the same minute degree as all other elements that constitute the expenses of production. We produce to consume and consume to produce, and the cost of consumption, including taxes, enters into the cost of production, and the cost of production, including taxes, enters into the cost of consumption, and thus taxes levied uniformly on things of the same class, by the laws of competition, supply, and demand, and the all-pervading mediums of labor, will be distributed, percussed, and repercussed to a remote degree, until they finally fall upon every person, not in proportion to his consumption of a given article, but in the proportion his consumption bears to the aggregate consumption of the taxed community.

A great capitalist, like Mr. Astor, bears no greater burden of taxation (and can not be made to bear more by any laws that can be properly termed tax laws) than the proportion which his aggregate individual consumption bears to the aggregate individual consumption of all others in his circuit of immediate competition; and as to his other taxes, he is a mere tax collector, or conduit, conducting taxes from his tenants or borrowers to the State or city treasury. A whisky distiller is a tax conduit, or tax collector, and sells more taxes than the original cost of whisky, as finds proof and illustration in the fact that the United States imposes a tax of one dollar and ten cents per gallon on proof whisky which its manufacturer would be very glad to sell free of tax for an average of thirteen cents per gallon. The tax, furthermore, is required to be laid before the whisky can be removed from the distillery or bonded warehouse and allowed to become an article of merchandise. Tobacco in like manner can not go into consumption till the tax is paid. In Great Britain, where all tobacco consumed is imported, for every 3d. paid by the consumer, 2.5d. represents customs duties or taxes. In Russia it is estimated that the Government annually requires of its peasant producers one third the market value of their entire crop of cereals in payment of their taxes, and fixes the time of collecting the same in the autumn, when the peasant sells sufficient of his grain (mainly for exportation), and with the purchase money meets the demands of the tax collector. Can it be doubted that the sums thus extorted enter into and form an essential part of the cost of the entire crop or product of the land? It is, therefore, immaterial where the process of manufacture takes place; the citizens of a State pay in proportion to the quantity which they consume. The traveler who stops at one of the great city hotels can not avoid reimbursing the owner for the tax he primarily pays on the property; and the owner, in respect to the taxation of his hotel property, is but a great and effective real-estate and diffused tax collector. Again, the farmer charges taxes in the price of his products; the laborer, in his wages; the clergyman, in his salary; the lender, in the interest he receives; the lawyer, in his fees; and the manufacturer, in his goods.

The American Bible Society is always in part loaded with the whisky and tobacco taxes paid by the printers, paper-makers, and book-binders, or by the producers of articles consumed by these mechanics, and reflected and embodied in their wages and the products of their labor according to the degree of absence of competition from fellow-mechanics who abstain from the use of these and other taxed articles.

These conclusions respecting the diffusion of taxes may be said to be universally accepted by economists so far as they relate to the results of production before they reach the hands of the final consumers; but they are not accepted by many, as Mr. Henry George has recently expressed it, in respect to taxes on special profits or advantages on things of which the supply is strictly limited, or of wealth in the hands of final consumers, or in the course of distribution by gift, and finally in respect to taxes on land. But a little examination would seem to show that all of these exceptions are of the kind that are said to prove the rule. Special profits and advantages in this age of quick diffusion of knowledge and intense competition are exceedingly ephemeral, and are mainly confined to results which the State with a view of encouraging removes for a limited time from the natural laws of competition by granting patents, copyrights, and franchises. Of things which are strictly limited in respect to supply, what and where are they? Only a very few can be specified: ivory, Peruvian guano, whalebone, ambergris, and the pelts of the fur seal. Of wealth in the process of transmission, or in the hands of final consumers, it is not tangible wealth unless it is tangible property, which conforms under any correct system of taxation to the principles of taxation; and if any one advocates the taxation of the right to receive property which has already been taxed, he in effect advocates a double exaction of one and the same thing. If it be asked, Will an income tax on a person retired from business be diffused? the answer, beyond question, must be in the affirmative, if the tax is uniform on all persons and on all amounts, and is absolutely collected in minute sums. Would any one pay the same price for a railroad bond which is subject to an income tax as he would for it if it was free from tax? If one's land is taxed, either in the form of rent or income, will not the tenant have the burden primarily thrown upon him? And, finally, will not the consumer of the tenant's goods pay through or by reason of such consumption?

Respecting the incidence of the tax on mortgages, it does not make any difference how mortgages are taxed—no earthly power can make the lender pay it. If the borrower would not agree to pay the tax, the lender would not loan him money, and whenever possible loans would be foreclosed and payment insisted upon if the borrower should refuse to pay the tax.

Let us next subject to analysis the incidence of the so-called taxation of land. Considered per se (or in itself), land, in common with unappropriated air and water, has no value; and it can not in any strict sense be affirmed that we tax land; and when such affirmation is made, its only legitimate and justifiable meaning is that we tax the value of land; which value is due entirely to the amount of personal property (in the sense of embodied labor) expended upon it, and the pressure or demand of such property or labor to use, possess, and occupy it.

Vattel, in his Law of Nations, enunciates as a self-evident and irrefutable proposition that "Nature has not herself established property, and in particular with regard to lands. She only approves this introduction for the advantage of the human race."

One of the most striking examples of evidence in illustration and proof of this proposition is to be found in an incident, which has heretofore escaped attention, which occurred during a debate in the Senate of the United States in 1890 on a bill for revision of duties on imports, in respect to the article borax (borate of soda). Formerly the world's supply of this mineral substance, which enters largely into industrial processes and medicine, was limited, and mainly derived from certain hot springs in Tuscany, Italy; but within a comparatively recent period it has been found that it exists in such abundance in certain of the desert regions of California, Nevada, and Arizona, that it can be gathered with the minimum of labor from the very surface of the ground. Were a single acre of similar desert to be found in any section of a country enjoying the most ordinary privileges in respect to transportation and water supply, it would be a source of wealth to its proprietor. But under existing circumstances, although thousands and thousands of acres of this land can be bought with certain title from its owner—the Federal Government—for two dollars and twenty-five cents an acre, no one wants it at any price; and the prospective demand for it has not yet been sufficient to warrant the Government in instituting even a survey as a preliminary to effecting a sale. In the Senate debate above alluded to it was proposed to increase the duty on imported borax, with the expectation that a consequent increase in its domestic price would afford sufficient profit to induce such construction of roads and such a supply of water and labor on the borax tracts of the deserts as to enable them to become property.[13]

In the oases of the deserts of North Africa and Egypt the value of a tract of land depends very little upon its size or location, but almost exclusively upon the number of the date-bearing palms, the result of labor, growing upon it, and the quality of their fruit. John Bright on one occasion stated that if the land of Ireland were stripped of the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occupier, the face of the country would be "as bare and naked as an American prairie."

An exact parallel to this state of things is afforded in the case of lands of no value reclaimed from the sea and made valuable, as has been often done in England, Holland, and other countries, by embodying labor upon them in the shape of restraining embankments and the transportation and use of filling material. Again, the value of springs or running streams of water is generally limited and of little account. But when, through direct labor, or the results of labor, the water is collected in reservoirs and made the instrumentality of imparting power to machinery, or conducted through conduits to centers of population which otherwise could not obtain it, it becomes extremely valuable, and capable of being sold in large or small quantities. Another similar illustration is to be found in the case of atmospheric air, which in its natural and ordinary state has no marketable value, but when compressed by labor embodied in the form of machinery and made capable of transmitting force, it at once becomes endowed with value and can be sold at a high price.

An opinion entertained and strongly advocated by not a few economic writers and teachers of repute (more especially in Europe, but not in the United States)[14] is, that taxes on land do not diffuse themselves, but fall wholly on the landowner, and that there is no way in which he can throw it off and cause any considerable part of them to be paid by anybody else. The concrete argument in support of this opinion has been thus stated: "When land is taxed, the owner can not, as a general rule, escape the tax, for the reason that, to get rid of the tax, the price of the land or of the rent must be raised the full amount of the tax, and the only way in which this can be done is by reducing the supply or quantity offered in market, or else by increasing the demand. The supply of land can not be reduced, and the demand being created by capital and population, both of which are beyond the control of the landowner, he can do nothing to raise the price of land, and hence can not get rid of the tax. It may be stated, then, as a general rule, that a tax on land, or on any commodity the supply of which is limited absolutely, must be paid by the owner. It is possible to suggest cases in which, through combination of owners and the necessities of consumers, a demand may be created strong enough to raise the price to the full amount of such tax, but it is doubted if such cases ever really occur."[15]

The source of the contention on this important economic and social question, and the difficulty in the way of the attainment of harmonious conclusions, is due to a nonrecognition of the fact that land is taxed under two conditions, and can not be taxed otherwise. Thus, if a person holds land for his exclusive use or enjoyment, and consumes all of its product, a tax on such land, which has been characterized by some economists as its "pure rent," will not diffuse itself, because it is a tax on personal enjoyment or final consumption. The same is the case when a portion of a river or lake or its shore is rented for fishing for the purposes of sport. A like result will also follow, in a greater or less degree, from the inability or unwillingness of tenants, as has been often the case in Ireland, to pay rent sufficient to reimburse the landowner for interest on his investment of capital and cost of repairs. But if one employs land as an instrumentality for acquiring gain through its uses, the taxation of land must include the taxation of its uses—its contents, all that rests upon it, all that is produced, sold, expended, manufactured, or transported on it—and all such taxes will diffuse themselves. On the other hand, if the taxation of land under such circumstances and conditions does not diffuse itself, then the taking is simply a process of confiscation, which if continued will ultimately rob the owner of his property, and is not governed by any principle.

It is indeed difficult to see how a theory so wholly inapplicable to fact and experience as that of the nondiffusion of taxes on land—which makes property in land an exception to the rule acknowledged to be applicable to all other property—could originate and be strenuously maintained to the extent even of stigmatizing any opposite view "as so very superficial as scarcely to deserve a refutation."[16] No little of confusion and controversy on this subject has arisen from the assumption that land specifically, and the rent of land, constitute two distinct and legitimate subjects for taxation, when the fact is just the contrary. The rent of land is in the nature of an income to its owner; and it is an economic axiom that when a government taxes the income of property it in reality taxes the property itself. In England and on the continent of Europe land is generally taxed on its yearly income or income value, and these taxes are always considered as land taxes. Alexander Hamilton, in discussing the taxation of incomes derived directly from property, used this language: "What, in fact, is property but a fiction, without the beneficial use of it? In many instances, indeed, the income is the property itself." The United States Supreme Court, in its recent decision of the income tax (1895), also practically indorsed this conclusion. To levy taxes on the rent of land and also upon the land itself is, therefore, double taxation on one and the same property, which in common with all other unequal and unjust taxes can not be diffused; and for this reason should be regarded as in the nature of exactions or confiscation, concerning the incidence of which nothing can be safely predicated. In short, this whole discussion, and the unwarranted assumption involved in it and largely accepted, is an illustration of what may be regarded as a maxim, that the greatest errors in political economy have arisen from overlooking the most obvious facts or deductions from experience.

With a purpose of further elucidating this problem, attention is asked first to its consideration from an "abstract," and next from a practical standpoint of view. Let us endeavor to clearly understand the common meaning of the word "rent." It is derived from the Latin reddita, "things given back or paid," and in plain English is a word for price or hire. It may be the hire of anything. It is the price we pay for the right of exclusive use over something which is not our own. Thus we speak of the rent of land, of buildings and apartments, of a fishery, of boats, of water, of an opera box, of a piano, sewing machines, furniture, vehicles, and the like. In Scotland at the present time farmers hire cows to dairymen, who pay an agreed-upon price by the year or for a term of years for each cow, and reimburse themselves for such payment and make a profit on the transaction by the sale of the products of the animal. This hire is called a rent, and is clearly the same in kind as the rent of land. We do not apply the word "hire" to the employment of men, because we have a separate word—"wages"—for that particular case of hire. Neither do we apply the word "rent" in English to the hire of money, because we have another separate word—"interest"—which has come into special use for the price paid for the loan or hire of money. But in the French language the word rent is habitually and specially used to signify the price of the hire money, and that of "rentes" to investments of money paying interest; the French national debt being always spoken of as "les rentes"; while the men who live on the lending of money, or capital in any form, are called "rentiers."

The question next naturally arises, Why is it necessary to set up any special theory at all about the natural disposition of the price which we pay for the hire of land, any more than about the price we pay for the hire of a house, of furniture, of a boat, of an opera box, or of a cow? The particular kind of use to which we put each of these various things is no doubt very different from the kind of use to which we put each or all the others. But all of these uses resolve themselves into the desire we have to derive some pleasure or some profit by the possession for a time of the right of exclusive use of something which is not our own, and for which we must pay the price, not of purchase, but of hire.

The explanation of this curious economic phenomenon is to be found in the assumption and positive assertion on the part of not a few distinguished economists that the truly scientific and only correct use of the term "rent" is its application to the "income derived from things of all kinds of which the supply is limited, and can not be increased by man's action."[17] As a rule, economists who accept this definition confine its application to the hire of land alone, although it professes to include other things, "of all kinds," to which the same description applies—namely, that they can not be increased in quantity by any human action. There are, however, no such other things specified, and in any literal sense there are no such other things existing, unless water and the atmosphere be intended.

Now, although it is indisputably true that man by his action can not increase the absolute or total quantity of land, any more than of water and air, appertaining to the whole globe on which we live, there is practically no limitation to the degree of value which man's action can impart to land, and which is the only thing for which land is wanted, bought, or sold, and which, as already shown, can be truly made the subject of taxation. The tracts of land on the earth's surface which are of no present marketable value are its deserts, its wildernesses, the sides and summits of its mountains, and its continually frozen zones, where no results of labor are embodied in or reflected upon it; while, on the other hand, its tracts of greatest value are in the large cities and marts of trade and commerce, as in the vicinity of the Bank of England, or in Wall Street, where the results of labor are so concentrated and reflected upon land that it is necessary to cover it with gold in order to acquire by purchase a title to it and a right to its exclusive use. The difference between land at twenty-five dollars an acre and twenty-five dollars a square foot is simply that the latter is or may be in the near future covered or surrounded by capital and business, while the former is remote from these sources of value. One of the greatest possible, perhaps probable, outcomes of the modern progress of chemistry is that through the utilization of microbic organizations the value of land as an instrumentality for the production of food may be increased to an extent that at the present time is hardly possible of conception. Again, in the case of air and water, although their total absolute quantity can not be increased, their available and useful quantity in any place, as before shown, can be by the agency of man, and their use made subject to hire or rent.

Consideration is next asked to the question at issue from what may be termed its practical standpoint. We have first a proposition in the nature of an economic axiom, that the price of everything necessary for production, or the hire of anything—land, money, and the like—without which the product could not arise, is, and must be, without exception, a part of the cost of that product; second, that all levies of the State which are worthy of being designated as taxes constitute an essential element of the cost of all products. The rent of an opera box, given to obtain a mere pleasure, constitutes a part of the fund out of which the musicians are paid, and if they are not so paid they will not play or sing. The rent given for the right to fish on a certain part of a river or its shores is a part of the cost of producing the fish as a marketable commodity. If a house is hired for the purpose of conducting any business in it, the price of that hire does most certainly enter into the cost of that business, whatever it may be, assuming that the use of the house is a necessity for carrying it on. As no man will produce a commodity by which he is sure to lose money, or fail to obtain the ordinary rate of profit, the tax must be added to the price, or the production will cease. If a uniform tax is imposed on all land occupied, it will be paid by the occupier, because occupation (house-building) will cease until the rent rises sufficiently to cover the tax. The landlord assesses upon his tenants the tax he has paid upon his real estate; each tenant assesses his share upon each of his customers; and so perfect is this diffusion of land taxation that every traveler from a distant part of the country who remains for even a single day at a hotel pays, without stopping to think about it, a portion of the taxes on the building, first paid by the owner, then assessed upon the lessees, and next cut up by them minutely in the per diem charge. But of course neither the owner nor lessee really escapes taxation, because a portion of somebody else's tax is thrown back upon them.

Is it possible to believe that in a city like New York, where less than four per cent of its population pay any direct tax on real estate, or in a city like Montreal, where the expenses of the city are mainly derived from taxes on land and the building occupancy of land, the great majority of the inhabitants of those cities are exempt from all land taxation? In China, where, as before shown, the title or ownership of all land vests in the emperor, and the revenue of the Government is almost exclusively derived from taxation of land in the form of rent, does the burden of tax remain upon the owner of the land? If the tax in the form of rent is paid in the products of the land, as undoubtedly it is in part, will not the cost of the percentage of the whole product of the land that is thus taken increase to the renter the cost of the percentage that is left to him; or, if the product is sold for money with which to pay the tax rent, will not its selling price embody the cost of the tax, as it will the cost of every other thing necessary for production? To affirm to the contrary is to say that the price which the Chinese farmer pays for the right of the exclusive use of his land is no part of the crops he may raise upon it.

Consider next the assertion of those who maintain the nondiffusion theory that taxes on land are paid by the owners because the supply of land can neither be increased nor diminished. In answer to it we have the indisputable fact that the owners of land, whenever taxes are increased, attempt to obtain an increased rental for it if the circumstances will permit it. And the very attempt tends to increase the rent. Nothing but adverse circumstances, such as diminishing population or commercial and industrial distress, can prevent a rise in the rental of land on which the taxes are increased; and in the case of dwellings and warehouses the rise is almost always very prompt, because no man will erect new dwellings or warehouses unless their rent compensate fully the increase of taxation. And in any prosperous community, in which population increases in the natural ratio, there must be a constant increase of dwellings and warehouses to prevent a rise of rent, independent of higher wages and higher taxation. In no other occupation is capital surer of obtaining the average net remuneration than in the erection of dwellings and warehouses, and nothing but lack of general prosperity and diminishing population can throw the burden of taxation on real estate or its owners, without the slightest attempt at combination on their part. If the owners of land are not reimbursed for its taxation by its occupants, new houses "would not be erected, the old ones would wear out, and after a time the supply would be so small that the demand would raise rents, and house building begin again, the tax having been transferred to the occupier."

It is pertinent at this point to notice the averment that is frequently made, that cultivators of the soil can not incorporate taxes on the land in the price of their products, because the price of their whole crop is fixed by the price at which any portion of it can be sold in foreign markets. In answer to this we have first the fact that, to give the population of the world an adequate supply of food and other agricultural products, it is not only necessary that all the land at present under cultivation shall continue to be so employed, but further that new lands shall each year be brought under cultivation, or else the land already cultivated shall be made more productive.

The population of the world steadily increases, notwithstanding wars, epidemics, and all the evils which are consequences of man's ignorance and of his improper use of things, his own faculties included. Hence, in case of increased taxation on land, the cultivator of the soil is generally enabled to transfer easily and promptly the burden of the tax to the purchasers of the products he raises, without abandoning the cultivation even of the least productive soil.

Furthermore, the exports of many agricultural products are due not to the cheapness of their cost of production, but to the variations which occur in the productiveness of the crops of other countries. M. Rouher, a French economist, and for a period a minister of commerce, thoroughly investigated this matter, and proved by incontestable data that almost invariably when the yield of breadstuffs in Europe was large in the country drained by the Black and Baltic Seas, it was small in the countries drained by the Atlantic. This variation in the yield of agricultural crops forces the countries where crops are deficient to purchase from those where they are abundant, or who have a surplus on hand from previous abundant harvests. In the United States, when the harvests are abundant, the American farmers, rather than sell below a certain price, keep a portion of their crops on hand until bad crops in Europe produce a foreign demand, which has to be supplied at once. Under such circumstances those who hold the surplus stock of breadstuffs, or any other product, would control the price, and not the foreigners who stand in need of it. The only check, then, to the cupidity of the holders of breadstuffs is the competition between themselves, which invariably suffices to prevent any undue advantage being taken of the necessities of the countries whose harvests are deficient. These bad crops occur frequently enough to consume all the surplus of the countries that produce in excess of their own wants. In fact, this transient, irregular demand is counted upon and provided for by producers just as much so as the regular home demand—hence is one of the elements that regulate production and control prices.

At this point of the discussion it is desirable to obtain a clear and true idea of the meaning or definition of the phrase "diffusion of taxes." As sometimes used in popular and superficial discussions, it is held to imply that every tax imposed by law distributes itself equitably over the whole surface of society. Such implication would, however, be even more fallacious than an assumption that every expenditure made by an individual distributes itself in such a way that it becomes equally an expenditure by every other individual. On the other hand, a fair consideration of the foregoing summary of facts and deductions would seem to compel every mind not previously warped by prejudice to accept and indorse the following as great fundamental principles in taxation: First, that in order to burden equitably and uniformly all persons and property, for the purpose of obtaining revenue for public purposes, it is not necessary to tax primarily and uniformly all persons and property within the taxing district. Second, equality of taxation consists in a uniform assessment of the same articles or class of property that is subject to taxation. Third, taxes under such a system equate and diffuse themselves; and if levied with certainty and uniformity upon tangible property and fixed signs of property, they will, by a diffusion and repercussion, reach and burden all visible property, and also all of the so-called "invisible and intangible" property, with unerring certainty and equality.

All taxation ultimately and necessarily falls on consumption; and the burden of every man, under any equitable system of taxation, and which no effort will enable him to avoid, will be in the exact proportion or ratio which his aggregate consumption maintains to the aggregate consumption of the taxing district, State, or community of which he is a member.

It is not, however, contended that unequal taxation on competitors of the same class, persons, or things diffuses itself whether such inequality be the result of intention or of defective laws, and their more defective administration. And doubtless one prime reason why economists and others interested have not accepted the law of diffusion of taxes as here given is that they see, as the practical workings of the tax systems they live under, or have become practically familiar with, that taxes in many instances do seem to remain on the person who immediately pays them; and fail to see that such result is due—as in the case of the taxation of large classes of the so-called personal property—to the adoption of a system which does not permit of equality in assessment, and therefore can not be followed by anything of equality in diffusion. Such persons may not unfairly be compared to physicists, who, constantly working with imperfect instruments, and constantly obtaining, in consequence, defective results, come at last to regard their errors as in the nature of established truths.[18]

According to these conclusions, the greatest consumers must be the greatest taxpayers. The man also who evades a tax clearly robs his neighbors. The thief also pays taxes indirectly, for he is a consumer, and must pay the advanced price caused by his own roguery for all he consumes, although he does steal the money to pay with. Idlers and even tramps pay taxes, but the amount that they indirectly pay into the fund is much less than they take out of it. People are sometimes referred to or characterized as non-taxpayers, and in political harangues and socialistic essays measures or policies are recommended by which certain persons or classes, by reason of their extreme poverty, shall be entirely exempt from all incidence or burden of taxation. Such a person does not, however, exist in any civilized community. If one could be found he would be a greater curiosity than exists in any museum. To avoid taxation a man must go into an unsettled wilderness where he has no neighbors, for as soon as he has a companion, if that companion be only a dog, which he in part or all supports, taxation begins, and the more companions he has, the greater improvements he makes, and the higher civilization he enjoys, the heavier will be the taxes he must pay.

Taxes legitimately levied, then, are a part of the cost of all production, and there can be no more tendency for taxes to remain upon the persons who immediately pay them than there is for rents, the cost of insurance, water supply, and fuel to follow the same law. The person who wishes to use or destroy the utility of property by consumption to gratify his desires, or satisfy his wants, can not obtain it from the owners or producers with their consent, except by gift, without giving pay or services for it; and the average price of all property is coincident with the cost of production, including the taxes advanced upon it, which are a part of its cost in the hands of the seller. Again, no person who produces any form of property or utility, for the purpose of sale or rent, sustains any burden of legitimate taxation, although he may be a tax advancer; for, as a tax advancer, he is the agent of the State, and a tax collector from the consumer. But he who produces or buys, and does not sell or rent, but consumes, is the taxpayer, and sustains a tax in his aggregate consumption, where all taxation must ultimately rest. In short, no person bears the burden of taxation, under an equitable, legitimate system, except upon the property which he applies to his own exclusive use in ultimate consumption. The great consumer is the only great taxpayer.

Finally, a great economic law pointed out by Adam Smith, which has an important and almost conclusive bearing upon this vexed problem of the diffusion of taxes, should not be overlooked—namely, his statement in The Wealth of Nations that "no tax can ever reduce for any considerable time the rate of profit in any particular trade, which must always keep its level with other trades in the neighborhood." In other words, taxes and profits, by the operation of the laws of human nature, constantly tend to equate themselves. Man is always prompted to engage in the most profitable occupation and to make the most profitable investment. And since the emancipation from feudalism with its sumptuary laws, legal regulations of the price of labor and merchandise, and other arbitrary governmental invasions of private rights, individual judgment and self-interest have been recognized as the best tests or arbiters of the profitableness of a given investment or occupation. The average profits, therefore, of one form of investment, or of one occupation (as originally shown by Adam Smith), must for any long period equal the average profits of other investments and occupations, whether taxed or untaxed, skill, risk, and agreeableness of occupation being taken into consideration.[19] Natural laws will, accordingly, always produce an equilibrium of burden between taxed and untaxed things and persons. There is a level of profit and a level of taxation by natural laws, as there is a level of the ocean by natural laws. In fact, all proportional contributions to the State from direct competitors are diffused upon persons and things in the taxing jurisdiction by a uniformity as manifest as is the pressure upon water, which is known to be equal in every direction.

A word here in reference to the popular idea that the exemption of any form of property is to grant a favor to those who possess such property. This idea has, however, no warrant for its acceptance. Thus, an exemption is freedom from a burden or service to which others are liable; but in case of the exclusion of an entire class of property from primary taxation, no person is liable, and therefore there is no exemption. An exclusion of all milk from taxation, while whisky is taxed, is not an exemption, for the two are not competing articles, or articles of the same class. It is true that highly excessive taxation of a given article may cause another and similar article, in some instances, to become a substitute or competing article; and hence the necessity of care and moderation in establishing the rate of taxation. We do not consider that putting a given article into the free list, under the tariff, is an exemption to any particular individual; but if we make the rate higher on one taxpayer or on one importer of the same article than on another taxpayer or importer, we grant an exemption. We use the word "exemption," therefore, imperfectly, when we speak of "the exemption of an entire class of property," as, for example, upon all personal property; for if the removal of the burden operates uniformly on all interested, or owning such property, then there can be no primary exemption.

THE GREAT BOMBARDMENT.

By CHARLES F. HOLDER.

A thin stratum of air, an invisible armor of great tenuity, lies between man and the menace of possible annihilation.

The regions of space beyond our planet are filled with flying fragments. Some meet the earth in its onward rush; others, having attained inconceivable velocity, overtake and crash into the whirling sphere with loud detonation and ominous glare, finding destruction in its molecular armor, or perhaps ricocheting from it again into the unknown. Some come singly, vagrant fragments from the infinity of space; others fall in showers like golden rain; all constituting a bombardment appalling in its magnitude. It has been estimated that every twenty-four hours the earth or its atmosphere is struck by four hundred million missiles of iron or stone, ranging from an ounce up to tons in weight. Every month there rushes upon the flying globe at least twelve billion iron and stone fragments, which, with lurid accompaniment, crash into the circumambient atmosphere. Owing to the resistance offered by the air, few of these solid shots strike the earth. They move out of space with a possible velocity of thirty or forty miles per second, and, like moths, plunge into the revolving globe, lured to their destruction by its fatal attraction. The moment they enter our atmosphere they ignite; the air is piled up and compressed ahead of them with inconceivable force, the resultant friction producing an immediate rise in temperature, and the shooting star, the meteor of popular parlance, is the result.

Ideal View of the Earth as it is Bombarded by the Estimated Four Hundred Million Meteorites every Twenty-four Hours.[20]

A simple experiment, made by Joule and Thomson, well illustrates the possibility of this rise in temperature by atmospheric friction. If a wire is whirled through the air at a rate of one hundred and seventy-five feet per second, a rise of one degree, centigrade, will be noticed. If the revolutions are increased to three hundred and seventy-two feet per second, the elevation will be 5.3° C. If the temperature increases as the square of the velocity, a rate of speed of twenty miles per second would develop a temperature not far from 360,000° C., which is probably far less than that at the surface of the ordinary meteor as it is seen blazing through our atmosphere. If the meteor is small it is often consumed by the intense heat generated; but larger fragments, owing to their velocity and the fact that they are poor conductors of heat and burn slowly, reach the surface and bury themselves in the sea or earth. But few escape the inevitable consequences of the contact, and of the untold millions which have struck the earth within the memory of man but five hundred and thirty have been seen to fall. The phenomena associated with the plunging meteor is most interesting. A blaze of light, as the terrific heat ignites the iron, announces its entrance into our atmosphere. It may be red, yellow, white, green, or blue, all these hues having been observed. Then follows the explosion, caused by the contact with the air piled up ahead, and in certain instances a loud detonation or a series of noises is heard, which may be repeated indefinitely until the meteoric mass is completely destroyed, and drops, a shower of disintegrated particles, which fall rattling to the ground.

The blaze of light does not continue to the earth, nor does the meteor, should it survive, strike the ground with the velocity with which it entered the atmosphere, as the latter often arrests its motion so completely that it drops upon the earth by its own weight, well illustrated by the meteorites of the Hesslefall, which dropped upon ice but a few inches thick, rebounding as they fell. Thus the atmosphere protects the inhabitants of the globe from a terrific bombardment by destroying many of the largest meteorites, reducing the size of others before they reach the surface and arresting the velocity so that few bury themselves deeply in the soil.

The writer observed a remarkable meteor in 1894. It entered our atmosphere, apparently, over the Mojave Desert, in California, and exploded over the San Gabriel Valley, though without any appreciable sound, and after the first flash disappeared, leaving in the air a large balloon-shaped object of yellow light which lasted some moments, presenting a remarkable spectacle. In this instance the meteor had probably exploded or been consumed, leaving only the light to tell the story, the atmospheric armor of the earth having successfully warded off the blow.

Viewing the facts as they exist, the earth, a seeming fugitive mass flying through space, vainly endeavoring to break the bonds which bind it to the sun, hunted, bombarded with strange missiles hurled from unseen hands or forces from the infinity of space, it is little wonder that the ancients and some savage races of later times invested the phenomena with strange meanings. It requires but little imagination to see in the flying earth a living monster followed by shadowy furies which hurl themselves upon it, now vainly attempting to reach the air-protected body or again striking it with terrific force, lodging deep in its sides amid loud reverberation and dazzling blaze of light.

Meteorites have been known from the very earliest times, and have often been regarded as miraculous creatures to be worshiped and handed down from family to family. The famous meteorite which fell in Phrygia, centuries ago, was worshiped as Cybele, "the mother of the gods," and about the year 204 B.C. was carried to Rome with much display and ceremony, when people of all classes fell down before it, deeming it a messenger from the gods. Diana of Ephesus and the famous Cyprian Venus were, in all probability, meteoric stones which were seen to fall, and were worshiped for the same reason as above. Livy describes a shower of meteorites which fell about the Alban Mount 652 B.C. The senate was demoralized, and certain prophets announced it a warning from heaven, so impressing the lawmakers that they declared a nine-days' festival with which to propitiate the gods. The visitor to Mecca will find enshrined in a place of honor a meteorite which can be traced back beyond 600 A.D., and which is worshiped by pilgrims. The Tartars pointed out a meteorite to Pallas, in 1772, which had fallen at Krasnojarsk, and which they considered a holy messenger from heaven. A large body of meteoric iron found in Wichita County, Texas, was regarded by the Indians as a fetich. They told strangers that it came from the sky as a messenger from the Great Spirit. This meteorite was stationed at a point where two Indian trails met, and was observed and worshiped as a shrine.

The Chinese have records of meteors which fell 644 B.C. The oldest authentic fall in which the stone is preserved is that of Ensisheim, Elsass, Germany, in 1492. The stone, which weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, fell with a loud roar, much to the dismay of the peasantry, penetrating the ground to a depth of five feet. It was secured by King Maximilian, who, after presenting the Duke Sigismund with a section, hung the remainder in the parish church as a holy relic, where, it is said, it may still be seen.

Meteorites vary in size from minute objects not larger than a pea to masses of iron of enormous size. The Chupaderos meteorite, which fell in Chihuahua, Mexico, weighs twenty-five tons. Another, which fell in Kansas, broke into myriads of pieces, the sections found weighing thirteen hundred pounds. A meteorite in the Vienna Museum, which fell in Hungary, weighs six hundred and forty-seven pounds, while the Cranbourne meteorite in the British Museum weighs four tons. The Red River meteorite in the Yale Museum weighs sixteen hundred and thirty pounds. The largest meteorite known was discovered within the Arctic Circle by Lieutenant Peary. The Eskimos had known of it for generations as a source of supply for iron. It was found by Lieutenant Peary in May, 1894, but, owing to its enormous weight, could not be removed until the summer of 1897, when, after much labor, it was excavated and hoisted into the hold of the steam whaling bark Hope and carried to New York, where it has found a resting place in the cabinet of the American Museum of Natural History. It is believed to weigh one hundred tons.

Up to 1772 the stories of bodies falling from space were not entertained seriously by scientific men. So eminent a scientist as Lavoisier, after thoroughly investigating a case, decided that it was merely a stone which had been struck by lightning. Falls finally occurred which demonstrated beyond dispute that the missiles came from space, and science recognized the fact that the earth was literally being bombarded, and that human safety was due to the atmospheric armor, scarcely one hundred miles thick, that enveloped the earth. Instances of the destruction of human life from this cause are very rare. Some years ago a meteorite crushed into the home of an Italian peasant, killing the occupant; and cattle have been known to be destroyed by them; but such instances are exceptional. In 1660 a meteorite fell at Milan, on the authority of the Italian physicist Paolo Maria Tezzayo, killing a Franciscan monk. Humboldt is authority for the statement that a monk was struck dead by a meteorite at Crema, September 4, 1511; and in 1674, on the same authority, a meteorite struck a ship at sea and killed two Swedish sailors.

In December, 1795, at Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire, England, a stone weighing fifty pounds dashed through the air with a loud roar, alarming people in the vicinity, and burying itself in the ground not thirty feet from a laborer. This mass, though undoubtedly traveling, when it struck our atmosphere, at a rate of at least thirty miles a second, was checked so completely that it sank but twelve inches into the soft chalk. Great as is the heat generated during the passage of a meteorite through the air, it does not always permeate the entire body. This was well illustrated in the case of the meteorite which fell at Dhurmsala, Kangra, Punjaub, India, in 1860, fragments of which can be seen in the Field Museum in Chicago. Of it Dr. Oliver C. Farington says: "The fragments were so cold as to benumb the fingers of those who collected them. This is perhaps the only instance known in which the cold of space has become perceptible to human senses."

Some of the individual falls during recent years have attracted widespread attention. One of the most remarkable is known as the Great Kansas Meteor. It was evidently of large size, flashing into sight eighty or ninety miles from the earth, on the 20th of June, 1876, over the State of Kansas. To the first observers it appeared to come from the vicinity of the moon, and resembled a small moon or a gigantic fire ball, blazing brightly, and creating terror and amazement among thousands of spectators who witnessed its flight. It passed to the east, disappearing near the horizon in a blaze of light. The entire passage occupied nearly fifty seconds, being visible to the inhabitants of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

This visitor created the greatest alarm and apprehension along its path, the blaze of light being accompanied by repeated explosions and detonations which sounded like the rumble and roar of cannonading. To some it appeared like the rattling of heavy teams over a rough, rocky road; others believed subterranean explosions accompanied the fall. Horses ran away, stock hurried bellowing to cover, and men, women, and children crouched in fear or fled before the fiery visitor whose roar was distinctly heard several minutes after it had disappeared. As the meteor crossed the Mississippi River the noise of the explosions increased in severity, and were distinctly heard sixty or seventy miles from its path, or a distance of one hundred and forty miles apart. The great ball of flame remained intact as it crossed five or six States, but as it passed over central Illinois loud detonations were heard and the light spread out like an exploding rocket with flashing points. This was the death and destruction of the monster, and from here it dashed on, a stream or shower of countless meteors instead of a solid body, forming over Indiana and Ohio a cluster over forty miles long and five in breadth, showing that while the meteor had broken up it was still moving with great velocity. How far it traveled is not known, as it was not seen to strike. Observers in Pennsylvania saw it rushing in the direction of New York, and people in that State, where the day was cloudy, heard strange rumblings and detonations. Houses rattled, and the inhabitants along the line the meteor was supposed to have passed accredited the phenomena to an earthquake. Somewhere, perhaps in the forest region of the Adirondacks, or in the Atlantic, lies the wreck of this meteor. But one fragment was found. A farmer in Indiana, while watching its passage heard the thud of a falling object, and going to the spot the following morning found a small meteorite weighing two thirds of a pound.

This marvelous body was first observed in all probability in the northwestern corner of the Indian Territory, possibly sixty or seventy miles above the earth, and from here it dashed along with repeated explosions, almost parallel to the earth's surface, disappearing over New York.

Another remarkable meteor fell into the Atlantic Ocean far out at sea, July 20, 1860. It resembled the one mentioned above in that it was accompanied by a marvelous pyrotechnic display. It first appeared in the vicinity of Michigan, blazing out with a fiery glow that filled the heavens with light. Cocks crowed, oxen lowed, and people rushed from their homes along its course over the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. When last seen, over the Atlantic, it had separated into three parts, which followed each other as separate fire bodies, without the noise which was the accompanying feature of the Kansas meteor.

Doubtless the majority of meteors plunge into the ocean, and in modern times several large meteoric bodies have narrowly escaped passing vessels. On December 1, 1896, the officers of the ship Walkomming, bound from New York to Bremen, noticed a large and brilliant meteor flashing down upon them. Its direction was from southeast to northwest, and it plunged into the sea ahead of the vessel with a loud roar and hissing sound; a few minutes later an immense tidal wave, presumably caused by the fall, struck the ship, doing no little damage. Even more remarkable was the escape of the British ship Cawdor, which was given up by the underwriters, but which reached San Francisco November 20, 1897. During a heavy storm, August 20th, a large meteor flashed from the sky and passed between the main and mizzen masts, crashing into the sea with a blinding flash and deafening detonation. For a moment it was thought the ship was on fire, and the air was filled with sulphurous fumes.

In 1888 a meteor dashed into the atmosphere of the earth and made a brilliant display over southern California. It appeared between twelve and one o'clock in the morning, and shot across the heavens, a fiery red mass—not like the ordinary meteor, but writhing and twisting in a manner peculiarly its own, resembling a huge serpent. When it had passed nearly across the sky it apparently stopped and doubled in the form of a horseshoe, according to the informant of the writer, as large as a half-mile race track. The horseshoe remained visible several minutes, gradually disappearing. The brilliancy of this meteor can be imagined when it is known that the entire San Gabriel Valley was illumined as though an electric light of great power had suddenly been flashed upon it.

Coon Butte, on Slope of which Ten Tons of Meteoric Iron has been found, and which was supposed to have been made by a Meteor.

Section of Interior of Coon Butte.

Section of Coon Butte.

Some time in past ages a meteorite weighing at least ten tons shot into our atmosphere and struck the earth near the famous Cañon Diablo in Arizona, the mysterious gulch crossed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad. The discovery was made several years ago by a sheep herder, named Armijo. Finding a piece of iron with a peculiar lustrous surface which he believed to be silver, he carried it to one of the towns, where it finally fell into the hands of a geologist, who pronounced it a meteorite. The discovery was followed up, and on the crest and in the vicinity of a singular cone about four thousand feet in diameter pieces of a meteorite were found on the surface, which gave a combined weight of ten tons, in all probability but a fraction of the real monster. The iron masses were widely scattered over the slope and the adjacent mesa, and it was assumed that a gigantic meteorite or star had fallen and produced the cone, another striking the earth and forming what is now known as the Cañon Diablo. A large piece of meteoric iron was found twenty miles from the cone; another eight miles east of it; two thousand pieces weighing not over a few pounds or ounces were taken from the slopes; two exceeding a thousand pounds were found within a half mile, while forty or fifty weighing about one hundred pounds were discovered within a radius of half a mile. Here not only a meteor, but a large-sized meteoric shower, had succeeded in penetrating the armor of the earth, leaving many evidences of the extraordinary occurrence which may have been witnessed by the early man of what is now known as Arizona. From the peculiar and interesting evidence a geologist deduced the hypothesis that the crater known as Coon Butte could have been produced by a meteor with a diameter of fifteen hundred feet, and a careful examination with a view of discovering it was made with nicely adjusted magnetic instruments; but in no instance did they indicate the presence of a vast body of metal buried in the earth, and it was assumed that the striking of the crater by the colossal meteorite was a chance blow.