tense look of cunning as he set about to obtain the cane. First agreeing that the terms 'reflex action,' ' instinct,' and 'reason' shall be defined according to the definitions of Dr. Romanes (' Animal intelligence,' p. 17), the action, or series of actions, executed by No. 2 must have been, wholly or in part, either reflex, instinctive, or rational. If reflex, there must have been: (a) Particular and often recurring stimuli, to have given rise to the acts of No. 2; and also, (b) The acts must have been adaptive, although not intentional. Manifestly, these two prime conditions did not obtain, and therefore the acts of No. 2 were not reflex, either in whole or in part. If instinctive, then the acts of No. 2 must have been performed "without necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and ends attained, but similarly performed under similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same species." 1o Had No. 2 ceased his current-making when he obtained the piece of wood, his act might possibly have been in part instinctive; but having obtained one object by this means, he seems to set the same cause in action to gain another object, which he conceives to be similarly conditioned, and when, apparently by new observations (data), finding that this second object is confined by a force greater than that which he can command by his water-current, he desists immediately from his exertions, it is evident that three several mental processes have occurred, to wit: (a) The employment of like causes to produce like effects. (b) The exercise of a certain amount of memory (individual education by experience). (c) The correct estimation of the difference in force, exerted upon the cane, between the watercurrent of his making and the confining power of his mate's paw, e. g., judgment. 2o By the conditions of our definition, it would be necessary, in order that these acts of No. 2 might be instinctive, that the same should be observed of the majority of polar bears when similarly conditioned. An appeal to facts shows that these acts are rarely executed by bears. Hence it follows that the said acts of No. 2 were not, either in part or in whole, instinctive. Finally, by the conditions of the proposition, these acts, being neither reflex nor instinctive, must be rational, or else did not take place, e. g., either reason must exist in certain bears of the polar species, or the mind of man must refuse to think of the acts of said bears. The only attempt at the vitiation of the foregoing argument is conceived to exist in the fact that it rests upon but one observation. JAMES P. MARSH. The eccentricity theory of the glacial period. Croll's eccentricity theory of the glacial period is certainly an attractive theory. The ingenuity and learning of its author have merited and received universal respect. The proposal thus to link together by one additional tie the sciences of astronomy and geology, is in harmony with that profound sense of the unity of nature, which is a dominant sentiment in modern science. In utter despair of the possibility of constructing any reliable time estimates by measuring the amount of erosion or deposition, every geologist would gladly welcome the opportunity of importing into his science something of the chronological definiteness which has been the boast of the astronomer. And it must, I think, be conceded that no very satisfactory explanation of a glacial period by means of purely terrestrial conditions has been proposed. peri Nevertheless, there has always been a considerable degree of skepticism in regard to the fundamental conception of the eccentricity theory. The question whether the conditions of aphelion winter and helion summer, in an epoch of great eccentricity, would tend to accumulate snow and ice, and produce a glacial period in the hemisphere so conditioned, has never been so answered as to command universal assent. Indeed, J. J. Murphy has argued, with much plausibility, that the glaciated hemisphere would be the one with perihelion winter and aphelion summer. Others have believed that there would be no appreciable effect in the direction of glaciation in either hemisphere. I desire to call attention to a class of well-known facts whose bearing upon the question has not, I think, been adequately regarded. A very brief preliminary discussion will suffice to show the bearing of the facts referred to. There would evidently be two marked contrasts in the character of the seasons between the two hemispheres at an epoch of high eccentricity. The hemisphere with aphelion winter would have a long winter and a short summer, while the other hemisphere would have a short winter and a long summer. Again, the hemisphere with aphelion winter would have extremes of heat and cold, its summer being very hot and its winter very cold, while the climate of the other hemisphere would approximate a mean throughout the year. It is by no means certain that the effects of these two contrasts upon the matter of glaciation would be in the same direction. As regards the difference in the length of the seasons, I suppose there can be no doubt that increased length of winter would tend to glaciation. Other things being equal, the longer the winter, the larger would be the proportion of precipitation in the form of snow, and the smaller the proportion in the form of rain. And increased snow fall would certainly tend to accumulation of snow and ice. But what would be the effect of the difference in the intensity of the seasons? Would glaciation be favored by cold winters and hot summers, or by mild winters and mild summers - by a climate of extremes, or by a climate of means? It seems to me that a comparison of the northern and southern hemispheres at present, in the matter of glaciation, will suggest an answer to this question. The present value of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit is so small that its climatic effects are completely masked by geographical conditions. The northern hemisphere now has the perihelion winter, and the southern hemisphere the aphelion winter. So far, therefore, as astronomical conditions control climate, the northern hemisphere should have a climate of means, and the southern hemisphere of extremes. But this relation is completely reversed by geographical conditions. The great amount of land in the northern hemisphere gives that hemisphere a climate of extremes, while the vast expanse of water in the southern hemisphere produces a climate of means. This contrast will appear very striking to any one who will compare the maps of January and July isotherms, respectively, for the globe. The two maps will be seen to differ but slightly in the southern hemisphere, immensely in the northern. I know no reason why a contrast between extremes and means in climate, produced by geographical conditions, should have a materially different effect, as regards glaciation, from a like contrast produced by astronomical conditions. It appears, then, that a comparison of the northern and southern hemispheres may show us whether a climate of means or a climate of extremes is favorable to glaciation. 1 Quarterly journ. of geolog. soc., xxv. 350, 1869; Amer. journ, science, [2] xlix. 115, 1870. Now, there can be no doubt that at present the southern hemisphere is suffering a greater degree of glaciation than the northern. As the facts are so well known, it is only necessary to allude to them. New Zealand, with a mean temperature about the same as that of Switzerland, has glaciers extending as nearly to the sea-level as those of Norway.1 Nor is this due to any exceptionally large snow-fall in New Zealand, for the precipitation there is no greater than in Norway, and considerably less than in Switzerland. Tierra del Fuega, with a mean temperature about equal to that of southern Norway, and with a winter temperature no colder than that of Switzerland, has glaciers extending to the sea. The same is true of the island of South Georgia, if, indeed, perpetual snow does not descend to the level of the ocean (as reported by Captain Cook).3 9 It may, I think, fairly be concluded that glaciation depends less upon the coldness of the winter than upon the coolness of the summer. Not a climate of extremes, but a climate of means, tends to produce glaciation. It appears, accordingly, that the two characteristics of the seasons, in an epoch of high eccentricity would tend in precisely opposite directions, as regards glaciation. In one hemisphere, the length of the winter would tend to glaciation, while the intensity of extremes of temperature would oppose glaciation. In the other hemisphere, the shortness of the winter would oppose glaciation, while the approximation to a mean temperature would favor glaciation. The actual tendency to glaciation would be, then, the algebraic sum of two values of opposite signs. In which hemisphere would the tendency to glaciation predominate? And would the absolute value of the algebraic sum of the two tendencies in either hemisphere be sufficient to have any appreciable influence? I simply suggest these questions, making no attempt to answer them. I may remark incidentally that there is something aparently unsound in the argumentation by which the advocates of the eccentricity theory seek to show that the hot perihelion summer would not melt the snow and ice. They virtually deny that the perihelion summer would be hot, urging that the temperature could not rise above the freezing point until the ice was all melted. It may well be conceded that the summer temperature could not rise much above the freezing point in the centre of a polar ice-cap, or at the apex of a snow-capped peak. But at the margin of a snow-field, polar or alpine, the climatic conditions would be very different. The ice-fields of a 1 Science, iv. 426, 1884. Darwin, Journ, of researches during voyage of H. M. S. Beagle, p. 224. N. Y., 1875. * Lyell, Principles of geology, vol. 1. p. 242. N. Y., 1872. Croll, Climate and time, pp. 58-67. New York, 1875. glacial period would not be created instantaneously in their maximum extent, but would be the results of a slow accumulation for many centuries. As each hemisphere in turn gradually approached the condition in which the climax of its winter would fall in aphelion, the snow-fields would be at first of very small extent. Outside the boundaries of those snow-fields, the land would be heated to a temperature increasingly hot, as year by year the climax of the summer approached the perihelion; and that high temperature of the surrounding areas would produce rapid melting at the margins of the snow-fields. Moreover, even at the extreme of glaciation, the area covered by ice would form but a small part of the surface of a hemisphere. Cold aphelion winters must be accompanied by perihelion summers not only potentially but actually hot. Wesleyan University, Middletown, WILLIAM NORTH RICE. The causation of pneumonia. In Science for Aug. 13, 1886, p. 133, I notice a paragraph relative to results of observations by Dr. Seibert of seven hundred and sixty-eight cases of pneumonia, wherein it appears that pneumonia prevails to its greatest extent "whenever there exists a low or falling temperature, with excessive and increasing humidity, and high winds." This reminds me that readers of Science may be interested to know that facts respecting a very much larger number of cases, and respecting pneumonia in different parts of the United States, in England, and in India, - that is to say, in several climates and under different conditions, - confirm to some extent the conclusions reached by Dr. Seibert, as mentioned by Science. Such statistics, presented by abstract at the last meeting of the American climatological association, demonstrate, I think, that the sickness from pneumonia is absolutely controlled by the temperature of the atmosphere. The higher the temperature, the less the sickness from pneumonia; and the lower the temperature, the more the sickness from pneumonia. This is equivalent to saying that that part of the conclusion of Dr. Seibert which relates to humidity is an error; because the absolute humidity of the atmosphere is, speaking roughly, inversely as its temperature, and there is most sickness from pneumonia when, or soon after, the air is driest absolutely; and there is least sickness from pneumonia when, or soon after, the air contains the most vapor of water, that is, when the temperature is highest. The error of many who have written on this subject, and probably the error of Dr. Seibert, consists partly in calling the 'per cent of saturation of the air (technically known as 'the relative humidity,' the humidity of the atmosphere. But the curve for 'relative humidity' is not, when inverted, the same as the curve for pneumonia, as you may see by comparing such curves, on the diagrams I published, based upon over twenty-seven thousand weekly reports of sickness in Michigan, by observers in different parts of the state, and upon over one hundred and twenty thousand observations of the psychrometer during the same time, namely, the seven years, 1878-84. Relative humidity seems to have an opposite relation in the warm months to what it has in the cold months. The fact, which I think I have completely completely demonstrated, is, that pneumonia is quantitatively proportional to the coldness and dryness of the atmosphere ; and, as this is true for every month of the year, it follows that, if there is any pneumonia which is infectious, it is absolutely dependent upon those meteorological conditions for its action upon the human organism. In the paper to which I have referred, I have advanced a theory of the causation of pneumonia consistent with the facts demonstrated; and, briefly outlined, it is as follows: Air expired from the human lungs is nearly saturated with vapor of water at a temperature of about 98° F., and this contains about 18.69 grains of vapor in each cubic foot. The quantity of vapor exhaled is at all times greater than the quantity inhaled; but when the air is very cold and dry, the quantity exhaled is excessive, as may be seen when we reflect that air at 32° F. can contain in each cubic foot only about two grains of vapor. The fluid which passes out from the blood into the air-cells of the lungs, and which normally keeps them moist, contains some of the salts of the blood; and the chloride of sodium, not being volatile, is mostly left in the air-cells when the vapor passes out with the expired air. When the air inhaled is excessively dry (as it always is when excessively cold), this salt collects in the air cells of the lungs in considerable proportion. This is proved by my statistics, which show the increase of pneumonia at such times, taken in connection with the fact that chloride of sodium in the lungs is in excess in pneumonia, which was proved in 1851 by Lionel S. Beale, M.D., of London, England. Dr. Beale also verified the observations by Redtenbacher, made in 1850, that during the onward progress of pneumonia the chlorides disappear from the urine, and reappear when convalescence has been established. In the air-cells, the chlorides are irritating when they become concentrated; but the exudation of fibrine, which is the most prominent condition in pneumonia, is probably favored by a fact in osmosis which is not generally well understood, -namely, that albumen, which it is usually considered will not pass by osmosis, will pass through an animal membrane to a solution of chloride of sodium. Thus the causation of pneumonia by the inhalation of cold dry air seems to be completely worked out. As a cause of deaths, pneumonia is one of the most important diseases. It is hoped that its prevention may now begin. HENRY B. BAKER. Lansing, Mich., Aug. 17. The sweating sickness. In Hume's 'History of England,' volume ii., p. 384, appears the following passage: "There raged at that time, in London and other parts of the kingdom, a species of malady unknown to any other age or nation, the 'sweating sickness,' which occasioned the sudden death of great multitudes, though it seemed not to be propagated by any contagious infection, but arose from the general disposition of the air and of the human body. In less than twenty-four hours the patient commonly died, or recovered; but when the pestilence had exerted its fury for a few weeks, it was observed, either from alterations in the air or from a more proper regimen which had been discovered, to be considerably abated." The time of this endemic must have been about the summer of 1485, just a short time previous to the coronation of Henry VII. The historian makes no further mention as regards the nature of this malady; in fact is distressingly concise in his account of so interesting a disorder. Now, the object of my letter is apparent: I wish a little more definite information concerning this socalled 'sweating sickness.' But if perchance, in my ignorance, I am inquiring about a disease the name of which is synonymous with one at present in existence, then the modern name will be all-sufficient. E. W. EVANS. Easton, Penn., Aug. 16. [The 'sweating sickness' to which our correspondent refers prevailed in England during portions of both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; appearing for the first time in 1485, again in 1506, for the third time in 1517, and twice subsequently, in 1528 and 1551. During this last visit, it appeared in London July 7, and during the twenty-three days that it remained caused nearly a thousand deaths. The disease was in the nature of a fever, followed by sweating; commencing with pains throughout the body, flushes of heat, oppression at the stomach, and delirium, after which, a profuse perspiration of an offensive odor. Relapses were apt to occur, sometimes as many as twelve in number. Some regarded the disease as a rheumatic fever, others as a form of ague, and others still as an influenza. The first appearance of the disease, in 1485, was traced to the army that fought at Bosworth; the second, of 1517, occurred when London was crowded with foreign artisans; and that of 1528 was coincident with the great military operations of Francis I. in Italy. At the time the sweating sickness prevailed in England, that country was ravaged by diseases and pestilences of almost every name. Spotted fever, brain fever, epidemic flux, scurvy, diphtheria, small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, and erysipelas, - all figured largely as mortality factors during these two centuries. That England was not blotted out of existence by pestilential disease during this epoch is a marvel. Houses were constructed without any regard to ventilation; the floors were made of loam covered with rushes, which were not removed, but were covered with others from time to time, until the deposit of twenty years and more had accumulated, - containing bones, broken victuals, and all manner of filth, and saturated with the discharges of man and beast. The streets were in the same condition, the filth being thrown into them from the houses. Of this condition of things Erasmus wrote, "If, even twenty years ago, I had entered into a chamber which had been uninhabited for some months, I was immediately seized with a fever." Add to this the gluttony and intemperance of the English people of this time, and some faint idea may be obtained of the influences at work to undermine the constitutions of our ancestors and prepare them for epidemic disease whenever it should appear. If our correspondent desires to study this disease in detail, he will find a full account in the following works: 'Historia regni Henrici, septimi regis Angliae, vol. ix. of the works of Francis Bacon; 'The epidemics of the middle ages,' J. F. C. Hecker, M. D., published by the Sydenham society; A boke or counseill against the disease commonly called the sweat or sweating sicknesse, made by Jhon Caius, doctour in physicke, 1552' (appendix to Hecker's 'epidemics of the middle ages'). A very admirable résumé of this epidemic disease, and of others, will be found in 'Public health,' by Wm. A. Grey, M. B., published by Henry Renshaw, London. - ED.] SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 1886. THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGES, AND THЕ ANTIQUITY OF SPEAKING MAN. In the study of every science there arise from time to time difficult questions or problems which seem to bar the way of the student in one direction or another. It becomes apparent that on the proper solution of these problems the progress of the science mainly depends; and the minds of all inquirers are bent earnestly on the discovery of this solution. Such, in biology, are the questions of the origin of life and the genesis of species. Anthropology, and its auxiliary or component sciences of comparative philology, ethnology, and archaeology, have their share of these problems. Among them, two of the most important are undoubtedly, in philology, the question of the origin of linguistic stocks, and in archaeology, the question of the epoch at which man acquired the faculty of speech. A brief consideration of these questions, in the light cast upon them by the most recent discoveries, may therefore be deemed to form an appropriate introduction to the work of our section. The question of the origin of languages must be distinguished from the different and larger question of the origin of language, which belongs rather to anthropology proper than to the science of linguistics, and will come under consideration in the later part of our inquiry. Nor yet does our question concern the rise and development of the different tongues belonging to one linguistic stock or family, like the sixty languages of the Aryan or Indo-European stock, the twenty languages of the Hamito-Semitic family, the one hundred and sixty-eight languages enumerated by Mr. R. N. Cust as composing the great Bantu or South African family, and the thirty-five languages of the wide spread Algonkin stock. Such idioms, however much they may differ, are in their nature only dialects. The manner in which these idioms originate is perfectly well understood. But we have no satisfactory theory to explain the distinction between the families themselves. When, for example, we have traced back the Aryan languages and the Semitic languages to their separate mother-tongues, which we are able Abstract of an address before the section of anthropology of the American association for the advancement of science at Buffalo, Aug. 19, 1886, by Horatio Hale, vicepresident of the section. to frame out of the scattered dialects, we find between these two mother-tongues a great gulf, which no explanation thus far proposed has sufficed to bridge over. How strongly the sense of this difficulty has been felt by the highest minds engaged in philological study, will be evident from two striking examples. Sixty years ago, Baron William von Humboldt found it (as Dr. Brinton states) “so contrary to the results of his prolonged and profound study of languages, to believe, for instance, that a tongue like the Sanscrit could ever be developed from one like the Chinese, that he frankly said that he would rather accept at once the doctrine of those who attribute the different idioms of men to an immediate revelation from God." Fifty years later Prof. Abel Hovelacque, in his work, La Linguistique,' declared, as the final conclusion of science, that there could be no conceivable community of origin between systems so unlike as that of the Indo-European and that of the Semitic tongues. "The abyss between the two systems," he affirms, " is not merely profound : it is impassable." The number of distinct linguistic stocks is computed to exceed two hundred, most of which are found on the western continent. Various attempts have been made to explain their origin, but none have gained general acceptance. Some of the most eminent philologists have given up the question, in despair of a solution. Yet the simple and sufficient explanation has been lying close at hand, awaiting only, like many other discoveries in science, the observation of some facts of common occurrence to bring it to light. In the present case, the two observers who have made the conclusive facts known to us have both been Americans, and both of them writers of more than ordinary intelligence; but both were entirely unknown in this branch of investigation, and both, moreover, had the ill-fortune of publishing their observations in works of such limited circulation that their important contributions to science have hitherto failed to attain the notice they deserved. Before setting forth the facts, it will be well to state at once the result of the inquiry. Briefly, then, the plain conclusion to which all the observations point, with irresistible force, is that the origin of linguistic stocks is to be found in what may be termed the language-making instinct of very young children. From numerous cases, of which the history has been traced, it appears that, "At when two children who are just beginning to speak are left much together, they sometimes invent a complete language, sufficient for all purposes of mutual intercourse, yet totally unintelligible to their parents and others about them. The first to observe, though not the first to publish, an instance of this nature was Miss E. H. Watson, a lady of Boston, the authoress of several esteemed works on historical subjects. In giving to the world, in 1878, a treatise by her father, the late George Watson, on 'The structure of language,' she prefixed to it an essay of her own on the 'Origin of language,' in which an interesting account is given of the childrens' language.' The children in question were twin boys, born in 1860, in a respectable family, residing in a suburb of Boston. They were constantly together, and an intense affection existed between them. the usual age," the authoress states, "these twins began to talk, but strange to say, not their 'mother-tongue.' They had a language of their own, and no pains could induce them to speak anything else. They persistently refused to utter a syllable of English. Their mother relates that although she could not understand their language, she contrived, by attention, to discover what they wished or meant." The important information is added that "even in that early stage, the language was complete and full; that is, it was all that was needed. The children were at no loss to express themselves in their plays, their chatterings' with each other all day." At last they were sent to a school, where they gradually learned English, as children learn a foreign language, and the memory of their own speech faded from their minds. Miss Watson, unfortunately, did not become aware of these circumstances until some time afterwards, when all recollection of this peculiar language was lost, except of a single word. Another observer, at about the same time, was more fortunate. A physician of Albany, Dr. E. R. Hun, in an article published in 1868, in the Monthly journal of psychological medicine, under the title of Singular development of language in a child,' has given a clear and scientific account of a similar phenomenon, with specimens of the language. In this case the speech was invented by a little girl, aged four years and a half, in conjunction with her brother, eighteen months younger than herself. About twenty of the words are given, most of which were used in several allied acceptations, -as mea, meaning both cat and furs; migno-migno, water, wash, bath; bau, soldier, music; odo, to send for, to go out, to take away; waia-waiar, black, darkness, a negro. The language had its own forms of con struction, as in mea waia-waiar, dark furs' (literally, 'furs dark'), when the adjective follows its substantive. Dr. Hun adds, "She uses her language readily and freely, and when she is with her brother they converse with great rapidity and fluency." Further inquiries have shown that such cases of child-language are by no means uncommon and these cases, it must be considered, are, after all, merely intensified forms of a phenomenon which is of constant recurrence. The inclination of very young children to employ words and forms of speech of their own is well known, though it is only under peculiar circumstances that this language acquires the extent and the permanence which it attained in the cases now recorded. In the light of the facts which have now been set forth, it becomes evident that, to insure the creation of a speech which shall be the parent of a new linguistic stock, all that is needed is that two or more young children should be placed by themselves in a condition where they will be entirely, or in a large degree, free from the presence and influence of their elders. They must, of course, continue in this condition long enough to grow up, to form a household, and to have descendants to whom they can communicate their new speech. We have only to inquire under what circumstances an occurrence of this nature can be expected to take place. There was once a time when no beings endowed with articulate speech existed on the globe. When such beings appeared, the spread of this human population over the earth would necèssarily be gradual. So very slow and gradual, indeed, has it been, that many outlying tracts - Iceland, Madeira, the Azores, the Mauritius, St. Helena, the Falkland Islands, Bounty Island, and others have only been peopled within recent historical times, and some of them during the present century. This diffusion of population would take place in various ways, and under many different impulses; - sometimes as the natural result of increase and overcrowding, sometimes through the dispersion caused by war, frequently from a spirit of adventure, and occasionally by accident, as when a canoe was drifted on an unknown shore. In most instances, a considerable party, comprising many families, would emigrate together. Such a party would carry their language with them; and the change of speech which their isolation would produce would be merely a dialectical difference, such as distinguishes the Greek from the Sanscrit, or the Ethiopic from the Arabic. The basis of the language would remain the same. No length of time, so far as can be inferred from the present state of our knowledge, would suffice |