THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS FROM THE LIBRARY OF SOPHIA L. MCDONALD SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR A SECOND SERIES BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR: A First Series. Uniform with the present volume. The subjects treated include Darwin's Theory, Protoplasm, Life and Death, the Story of the Common Eel, the Dragon, Oysters, Sleep, Comets, Tadpoles, Gossamer, the Jumping Bean, Hop-blight, the Most Ancient Men, and many others. Methuen & Co. 1910. THE KINGDOM OF MAN. With 56 Illustrations. $1.40 net. Henry Holt and Company, New York. EXTINCT ANIMALS. With Portrait of the Author and 218 Illustrations. New Edition, 1909. $1.75 net. Henry Holt and Company, New York. The Times says: "There has been published no book on this subject combining so successfully the virtues of accuracy and attractiveness." The Athenceum says : " Described with a masterly hand." SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR A SECOND SERIES BY SIR RAY LANKESTER K.C.B., F.R.S. WITH FIFTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 19*3 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PREFACE I AM encouraged by the kind reception given to the first selection of papers from my weekly contributions to the 'Daily Telegraph' to publish a second series of 'Science from an Easy Chair,' of like form and size. I have given in this, as in the earlier volume, some figures in illustration of the articles, and have, here and there, revised and expanded the originals. It must be remembered that these papers are, strictly speaking, " occasional." There is no attempt to treat any subject in a complete or detailed way. The chapters are purposely arranged so as to pro- duce a variegated result a mixed assortment in which it is hoped that readers of differing interests may find each something to his taste. I hope that some may be led by the reading of one of my short chapters to look further into the matter of which it treats and to consult more thorough-going treatises abounding in details and pictures which are beyond the scope of this little volume. The two volumes bearing the title, ' Science from an Easy Chair,' viz. the present one (second series) and that published in 1910 by Methuen & Co., contain only vi SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR a small portion of the articles published in the ' Daily Telegraph,' one every week, since October, 1907. It is my intention to collect the rest of this material in book form as soon as I can find time to do so. E. RAY LANKESTER. October^ 1912. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A DAY IN THE OBERLAND i Fertilisation of Sage The Edelweiss The Jungfrau's Breast Contortions of Rock-strata The Jungfrau Railway Mountain Sickness. II. SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER . . . -15 Alpine Flowers Flowers of the Meadows and Woods The Herb Paris. III. GLETSCH ... ..... 22 From Baveno to the Rhone Glacier A Glacier by the Roadside Changes in the Glacier. IV. GLACIERS 29 Snow squeezed to Ice Regelation Movement of Glaciers Vast Size of Ancient Glaciers Distinct Glacial Periods Causes of Glacial Periods Date of Last Glacial Extension The Flow of Glaciers The Colour of Ice Ice Scratching and Ice Polishing Excavation by Glaciers. V. THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE . . 52 The Cinematograph Ancient Representations of Gallop The Dog in Mycenaean Art What ought an Artist to do ? Attention as a Condition of Seeing Judg- ment and Prejudice Natural and Artificial Paces Photographs by Electric Spark Use of Instantaneous Photographs Errors as to the Size of the Moon The Painter and the Moon The Moon on the Stage. VI. THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD .... 85 The Decay of Credulity A Sceptical Physician How to Test a Toadstone Other Magical Stones Medi- cinal and Magical Stones. VII. FERN-SEED . 96 Invisible Seed The Spores of Ferns The Prothallus of Ferns Fertilisation of Figs and Palms, vii viii SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR CHAPTER PAGE VIII. FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS . . .107 Chemical Attraction Transition from Ferns to Flowers The Gingko Tree and Cycads Extinct Seed-pro- ducing Ferns. IX. ELEPHANTS 119 The Indian and the African Elephant Size of Modern Elephants Ears and Teeth of Elephants Earliest Elephants brought to Europe The Elephant's Legs Tusks used in Digging Elephants used in War Geological Strata since the Chalk Ancestral Mam- mals The Typical or Ancestral Set of Teeth The Peculiarities of the Teeth of Elephants Extinct Relatives of Elephants Ancestors of Elephants Origin of the Elephant's Trunk. X. A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST 148 Fossil Skeletons and Jaw-bones The Skull and Teeth of Goats The Teeth of Rats The Rat-toothed Goat Origin of the Rat-toothed Goat. XI. VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH . . . .159 Teeth of Carnivors Mixed Diets Disease-germs in Food. XII. FOOD AND COOKERY 170 Special Diet of Various Races Food and Habit Nervous Control of Digestion Wholesale Food and Mechanical Cookery The Burnt Offering of the Jews Women Neglect Cookery A Great German's Appreciation. XIII. SMELLS AND PERFUMES . . . . . .184 Smells and Memory Accidental Qualities Bacteria and Smells Some Remarkable Smells. XIV. KISSES 193 Kissing and Smelling Variations in the Sense of Smell Radiation and Odours Attraction by Smell Unconscious Guidance by Smell. XV. LAUGHTER . . 204 Why do we Laugh ? Varieties of Laughter The Laugh of Escape from Death The Laugh of Derision. XVI. FATHERLESS FROGS 213 Fertilisation of the Egg-cell Egg-cells Developing Un- fertilised M. Bataillon's Discovery. CONTENTS IX CHAPTER PAGE XVII. PRIMITIVE BELIEFS ABOUT FATHERLESS PROGENY 221 Harvey and Milton Reproduction by Budding Stories of Virgin Births Spiritual Theory of Conception. XVIII. THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN 230 Characteristics of Pygmies Colour of the Skin Egyptian Stories of Pygmies Congo and New Guinea Pygmies The Causes of Small Size Small- ness a Correlation. XIX. PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS 244 Early Carvings and Pictures Paintings in Caverns Painting of Human Figures Artistic Sympathy Aurignacians and Bushmen Allied. XX. NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE CALENDAR . . .256 Make-believe and New Year Divisions of Time The Difficulties of the Calendar Pope Gregory's Ten Days. The Astronomer Royal and the Shah. XXI. EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS AND SPERMACETI . . 267 The Real Shamrock Sham Shamrock Leonardo or Lucas ? Various Fats. XXII. THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE TADPOLES OF THE SEA 276 Sea-squirts The Anatomy of a Sea-squirt The Sea- squirt's Coat The Sea-squirt's Young Gill-slits Structure of the Sea-squirt's Tadpole Fixation of the Sea-squirt's Tadpole The Frog's Tadpole Simplification with Specialisation Mites as Deca- dent Spiders Composite Sea-squirts Phosphores- cent Colonies The Organs of Phosphorescence Solitary Salps and Chain-salps Tell-tale Young Stages The Peacock's Train Simplification of Train-feathers. XXIII. MUSEUMS 310 The Muses The Museum of Alexandria Picture Gal- leries and Museums The Purposes of Museums The First Business of Museums National Value of Museums University Museums Not for Children but for Adults Screens and Electric Lifts Frames and Setting of Pictures. XXIV. THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE . . 330 The Angel of Death The Tyranny of Parasites- Typhus and Monkeys Typhus Fever in Russia. x SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR CHAPTER PAGE XXV. CARRIERS OF DISEASE .... -339 The Entrance of Parasites Man as a Ca-rrier of Disease House Flies and Disease. XXVI. IMMUNITY AND CURATIVE INOCULATIONS . . 346 Inoculation of Smallpox Antitoxins The Wonderful Properties of Blood Germ-killing Poisons in the Blood Opsonins or Sauce for Germs. XXVII. THE STRANGE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND 357 Strange Birds Destroyed by Europeans Introduced Animals. XXVIII. THE EFFACEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN . . 365 Disappearance of Great Animals Man's Reckless Greed Hope in Irrigation. XXIX. THE EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND OF WHALES 373 Drowning in a Dead Whale's Heart The Value of Whalebone No more Turtle Soup. XXX. MORE ABOUT WHALES .... . 380 The Shape of Whales Enormous Pressure of Gas in the Blood The Killer and the Narwhal Fossil Whales. XXXI. MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE . . . .388 What Science does not explain Darwin's Theory is adequate The Aquosity of Water Need for Inter- preters of Science The Exploded Ghost called "Caloric" Nightmares Destroyed by Science When did the Soul arrive ? The Great Silence. INDEX 4S LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES IN THE TEXT FIG. PAGE 1. FLOWER OF THE YELLOW SAGE . . . . . . 4 2. THE EDELWEISS 6 3. "FOLDING" OF ROCK STRATA 8 4. A MAN EXTRACTING THE JEWEL FROM A TOAD'S HEAD 89 5. THE PALATE OF THE FOSSIL FISH LEPIDOTUS. . . 91 6. UNDER-SURFACE OF THE FROND OF THE COMMON POLYPODY FERN 96 7. GERMINATION OF THE SPORE OF A FERN . . . 100 8. UNDERSIDE OF THE PROTHALLUS OF A FERN . . . 101 9. THE SPERM-SACS AND EGG-PITS OF THE PROTHALLUS OF THE FERNS 105 10. THE RELATION OF THE SPORE-PRODUCING LEAVES OR LEAFLETS OF A ROYAL FERN, A PINE TREE, AND AN ORDINARY FLOWER in 11. THE INDIAN ELEPHANT . 120 12. THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT 121 13. THE CROWNS OF THREE "GRINDERS" OR MOLARS OF ELEPHANTS COMPARED . 126 14. SKELETON OF THE INDIAN ELEPHANT . . . .137 15. THE TEETH IN THE UPPER AND LOWER JAW-BONE OF THE COMMON PIG 140 16. A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EXTINCT AMERICAN MAS- TODON 142 17. SKULL AND RESTORED OUTLINE OF THE HEAD OF THE LONG-JAWED EXTINCT ELEPHANT CALLED TETRA- BELODON . 143 xi xii SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR FIG. 1 8. HEAD OF THE ANCESTRAL ELEPHANT PAL^EOMASTODON 19. RESTORED MODEL OF THE SKULL AND LOWER JAW OF THE ANCESTRAL ELEPHANT PAL^EOMASTODON . 20. HEAD OF THE EARLY ANCESTOR OF ELEPHANTS MERI- THERIUM AS IT APPEARED IN LIFE . . . . 21. SKULL AND LOWER JAW OF A GOAT 22. TEETH IN THE LOWER AND UPPER JAW OF THE GOAT 23. SKULL OF A TYPICAL "RODENT" MAMMAL, THE COYPU RAT 24. TEETH OF THE COYPU RAT 25. SKULL OF THE RAT-TOOTHED GOAT, MYOTRAGUS . 26. SKULL OF A CLOUDED TIGER 27. TEETH OF THE LOWER AND UPPER JAW OF THE SAME CLOUDED TIGER'S SKULL 28. FIGURE FROM A GROUP DRAWN ON A GREEK VASE 29. GROUP OF WOMEN CLOTHED IN JACKET AND SKIRT WITH "WASP-LIKE" WAISTS 30. FURTHER PORTION OF SAME GROUP AS FIG. 29 31. Two KINDS OF ASCIDIANS OR "SEA-SQUIRTS" 32. A DISSECTION OF AN ASCIDIA 33. BRILLIANTLY COLOURED STAR-LIKE GROWTHS 34. TADPOLE OF A FROG AND OF AN ASCIDIAN 35. ANATOMY OF THE TADPOLES OF THE FROG AND OF THE ASCIDIAN 285 36. HEAD OF AN ASCIDIAN TADPOLE 287 37. FIXATION OF THE ASCIDIAN TADPOLE BY ITS HEAD TO A ROCK 288 38. Do., A LATER STAGE 289 39. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FROG'S TADPOLE INTO A YOUNG FROG 291 40. Two INDIVIDUALS OF THE SHIP'S BARNACLE . . .294 41. DEVELOPMENT OF THE BARNACLE FROM A FREE-SWIM- MING STAGE WITH Six ACTIVE LEGS .... 295 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii PLATES THE JUNGFRAU SEEN FROM ABOVE THE LAUTER- BRUNNEN VALLEY Frontispiece I. CONSECUTIVE POSES OF THE GALLOPING HORSE Facing p. 54 II. VARIOUS REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GALLOP . 56 III. REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GALLOP . . . 58 IV. REPRODUCTION FROM MR. THEODORE A. COOK'S BOOK, 'A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF' 64 V. THE TRACK OF THE RISING MOON 76 VI. THREE FIGURES LORD LANSDOWNE, MR. LLOYD GEORGE, AND MR. ASQUITH 83 VII. TEETH OF THE UPPER AND LOWER JAW OF MAN Between pp. 166 and 167 VIII. TEETH OF THE UPPER AND LOWER JAW OF THE GIBBON .... Between pp. 166 and 167 IX. FIRST LOWER MOLARS OF ORANG-OUTAN AND MAN Facing p. 169 X. VOTARY OR PRIESTESS OF THE GODDESS TO WHOM SNAKES WERE SACRED . . w 253 XI. FRESCO DRAWING OF Two FEMALE ACROBATS 252 XII. THE EYED FEATHERS OF THE PEACOCK'S TAIL 307 XIII. 308 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR SECOND SERIES CHAPTER I A DAY IN THE OBERLAND I AM writing in early September from Interlaken, one of the loveliest spots in Europe when blessed with a full blaze of sunlight and only a few high-floating clouds, but absolutely detestable in dull, rainy weather, losing its beauty as the fairy scenes of a theatre do when viewed by dreary daylight. It is the case of the little girl of whom it is recorded that " When she was good she was very good, and when she was not she was horrid." This morning, after four days' misconduct, Interlaken was very good. The tremendous sun-blaze seemed to fill the valleys with a pale blue luminous vapour, cut sharply by the shadows of steep hill-sides. Here and there the smoke of some burning weeds showed up as brightest blue. Far away through the gap formed in the long range of nearer mountains, where the Liitschine Valley opens into the vale of Interlaken, the Jungfrau appeared in full majesty, absolutely brilliant and unearthly. So I walked towards her up the valley. Zweiliitschinen is the name given to the spot where the valley divides into two, I 2 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND that to the left leading up to Grindelwald, under the shadow of the Monch and the Wetterhorn, that to the right bringing one to Lauterbriinnen and the Staubbach waterfall, with the snow-fields of the Tchingel finally closing the way over which I climbed years ago to Ried in the Loetschen Thai. The autumn crocus was already up in many of the closely trimmed little meadows, whilst the sweet scent of the late hay-crop spread from the newly cut herbage of others. At Zweiliitschinen, where the white glacier-torrent unites with the black, and the milky stream is nearly as cold as ice, and is boiling along over huge rocks, its banks bordered with pine forest, I came upon a native fishing for trout. He was using a short rod and a weighted line with a small " grub " as bait. He dropped his line into the water close to the steep bank, where some projecting rock or half-sunk boulder staved off the violence of the stream. He had already caught half-a- dozen beautiful, red-spotted fish, which he carried in a wooden tank full of water, with a close-fitting lid to prevent their jumping out. I saw him take a seventh. The largest must have weighed nearly two pounds. It seems almost incredible that fish should inhabit water so cold, so opaque, and so torrential, and should find there any kind of nourishment. They make their way up by keeping close to the bank, and are able, even in that milky current, to perceive and snatch the unfortunate worm or grub which has been washed into the flood and is being hurried along at headlong speed. Only the trout has the courage, strength, and love of nearly freezing water necessary for such a life no other fish ventures into such conditions. Trout are actually caught in some mountain pools at a height of 8000 ft., edged by perpetual snow. FERTILISATION OF SAGE 3 You are rarely given trout to eat here in the hotels. A lake fish, called " ferras," a large species of the salmonid genus Coregonus, to which the skelly, powan, and vendayce of British lakes belong, is the commonest fish of the table d'hote, and not very good. A better one is the perch-pike or zander. It is common in all the larger shallow lakes of Central Europe, and abounds in the " broads " which extend from Potsdam to Hamburg, though it is unknown in the British Isles. It is quite the best of the European fresh-water fish for the table, and there should be no difficulty about introducing it into the Norfolk Broads. It would be worth an effort on the part of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to do so, as the perch-pike, unlike other fresh-water fishes, would hold its own on the market against haddock, brill, and plaice. Another interesting fresh-water fish which grows to a large size in the Lake of Geneva (where I have seen it netted) is the burbot called " lote " in French a true cod of fresh-water habit which, though common through- out Europe and Northern Asia, is, in our country, only taken in a few rivers opening on the east coast. It is a brilliantly coloured fish, orange-brown, mottled with black, and is very good eating. Passing up the Lauterbriinnen valley, I came upon some wild raspberries and quantities of the fine, large-flowered sage, Salvia glutinosa, with its yellow flowers, in shape like those of the dead-nettle, but much bigger. They were being visited by humble-bees, and I was able to see the effective mechanism at work by which the bee's body is dusted with the pollen of the flower. I have illustrated this in some drawings (Fig. i) which are accompanied by a detailed explanation. Two long stamens, 1 , arch high up over the lip of the flower, /z, on which the bee alights, and are protected by a keel or hood of the corolla. Each stamen is provided with a broad process, # 2 , standing 4 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND out low down on its arched stalk, and blocking the way to the nectar in the cup of the flower. When the bee pushes his head against these obstacles and forces them backwards, the result is to swing the long arched stalk, FIG. i. Diagrams of the flower of the yellow sage (Salvia ghitinosa) a little larger than life. i. An entire flower seen from the side. st. The stigma, a 2 . The pair of modified half-anthers which are pushed back by the bee when inserting its head into the narrow part of the flower. 2. A similar flower at a later stage when the stigma, st., has grown downwards so as to touch the back of a bee alighting on the lip of the flower, and gather pollen from it. 3. Diagram of one of the two stamens. /. The stalk or filament of the stamen. a 1 . The pollen-producing half-anther. co. The elongated connective joining it to the sterile half-anther. 4. Sec- tion through a flower showing ov. the ovary ; nee. the nectary or honey-glands; st. the style; li. the lip of the flower on which the bee alights. 5. Similar section showing the effect of the pushing back of a 2 by the bee, and the downward swinging of the pollini- ferous half-anther so as to dust the bee's back with pollen. The dotted arrow shows the direction of the push given by the bee. THE EDELWEISS 5 with its pollen sacks, in the opposite direction, namely, forwards and downwards on to the bee's back. It was easy to see this movement going on, and the consequent dusting of the bee's back with pollen. In somewhat older flowers, which have been relieved of their pollen, the style, st., or free stalk-like extremity of the egg-holding capsule, already as long as the stamens, grows longer and bends clown towards the lip or landing-place of the yellow flower. When a pollen-dusted bee alights on one of these maturer flowers the sticky end of the now depending style is gently rubbed by the bee's back and smeared with a few pollen- grains brought by the bee from a distant flower. These rapidly expand into " pollen tubes," or filaments, and, penetrating the long style, reach the egg-germs below. Thus cross-fertilisation is brought about by the bees which come for the nectar of Salvia. The stalks and outer parts of the flower of this plant produce a very sticky secretion which effectually prevents any small insects from crawling up and helping themselves to the nectar exclusively provided for the attraction of the humble-bee, whose services are indispensable. As I walked on a belated Apollo butterfly, with its two red spots and a pale swallow-tail, fluttered by me. Then some children emerged from unsuspected lurking-places in the wood and offered bunches of edelweiss (Fig. 2). This curious-looking little plant does not grow (as pretended by reporters of mountaineering disasters) exclusively in places only to be reached by a dangerous climb. I have gathered it in meadows on the hillside above Zermatt, and it is common enough in accessible spots. The flowers are like those of our English groundsel and yellow in colour little " composite " knobs, each built up of many tubular " florets " packed side by side. Six or seven of these little short-stalked knobs of florets are arranged in a circlet around a somewhat larger central knob, and each of them 6 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND gives off from its stalk one long and two shorter white, hairy, leaf-like growths, flat and blade-like in shape and spreading outwards from the circle, so that the whole series resemble the rays of a star (or more truly of a star- FIG. 2. The Edelweiss, Gnaphalium leontopodium. fish !). They look strangely artificial, as though cut out of new white flannel (with a greenish tint), and have been dignified by the comparison of the shape of the white- flannel rays with that of the teeth of the lion and the claws of the eagle. They are extraordinary-looking little plants, and are similar in their hairiness and pale tint to THE JUNGFRAU'S BREAST 7 some of the seaside plants on our own coast, which, in fact, include species closely allied to them (" cud-weeds " of the genus Gnapkalium). The huge cliffs of rocks on either side (in some parts over a thousand feet in sheer height from the torrent) come closer to one another in the part where we now are than in most Alpine valleys, so as almost to give it the character of a " gorge." At some points the highest part of the precipice actually overhangs the perpendicular face by many feet. A refreshing cold air comes up from the icy torrent, whilst the heat of the sun diffuses the delicious resinous scent of the pine trees. Above the naked rock we see steep hill-sides covered with forest, and away above these again bare grass-slopes topped by cloud. But as the clouds slowly lift and break we become suddenly aware of something impending far above and beyond all this, something more dazzling in its white brightness than the sun-lit clouds, a form sharply cut in outline and firm, yet rounded by a shadow of an exquisite purple tint which no cloud can assume. The steely blue Alpine sky fits around this marvel of pure whiteness as it towers through the opening cloud, and soars out of earth's range. What is this glory so remote yet impending over us? It is the Jungfrau, the incomparable virgin of the ice-world, who bares her snowy breast. She slowly parts her filmy veil, and, as we gaze, uncovers all her loveliness. The rock walls of the Lauterbriinnen valley show at one place a thickness of many hundred feet of strongly marked, perfectly horizontal "strata" the layers deposited immense ages ago at the bottom of a deep sea. Not only have they been raised to this position, and then cut into, so as to make the profound furrow or valley in the sides of which we see them, but they have been bent and contorted in places to an extent which is, at first sight, A DAY IN THE OBERLAND CONTORTIONS OF ROCK-STRATA g incredible. Close to one great precipice of orderly horizontal layers you see the whole series suddenly turned up at right angles, and the same strata which were horizontal have become perpendicular. But that is not the limit, for the upturned strata are seen actually to turn right over, and again become horizontal in a reversed order, the strata which were lowest becoming highest, and the highest lowest. The rock is rolled up just as a flat disc of Genoese pastry consisting of alternate layers of jam and sponge-cake is folded on itself to form a double thickness. The forces at work capable of treating the solid rocks, the foundations of the great mountains, in this way are gigantic beyond measurement. This folding of the earth's crust is caused by the fact that the " crust," or skin of the earth, has ceased to cool, being warmed by the sun, and therefore does not shrink, whilst the great white-hot mass within (in comparison with which the twenty-mile-thick crust is a mere film) continually loses heat, and shrinks definitely in volume as its temperature sinks. The crust or jacket of stratified rock deposited by the action of the waters on the surface of the globe has been compelled at whatever cost, so to speak to fit itself to the diminishing u core " on which it lies. Slowly, but steadily, this "settlement" has gone on, and is going on. The horizontal rock layers, being now too great in length and breadth, adjust themselves by "buckling" just as a too large, ill-fitting dress does and the Alps, the Himalayas, and other great mountain ranges, are regions where this "buckling" process has for countless ages proceeded, slowly but surely. Probably the "buckling" has proceeded to a large extent without sudden movement, but with a lateral pressure of such power as ultimately to throw a crust of thousands of feet thickness into deep folds a mile or so in vertical measure- ment from crest to hollow, protruding from the general io A DAY IN THE OBERLAND level both upwards and downwards, whilst often the folds are rolled over on to each other. This crumpling and folding has gone on at great depths that is to say, some miles below the surface (a mere nothing compared with the 8000 miles diameter of the globe itself), though we now see the results exposed, like the pastry folded by a cook. Immense time has been taken in the process. A folding movement involving a vertical rise of an inch in ten years would not be noticed by human onlookers, but in 600,000 years this would give you a vertical displacement of more than 5000 ft. (nearly a mile !). It has been shown that in Switzerland, along a line of country extending from Basle to Milan, strata of 10,000 ft. to 20,000 ft. in thickness, which, if straightened out, would give a flat area of that thickness, and of 200 miles in length, have been buckled and folded so as to occupy only a length of 130 miles ! The former tight-fitting skin of horizontal rock layers has " had to " buckle to that extent here (and in the same way in other mountain ranges in other parts of the world), because the whole terrestrial sphere has shrunk, owing to the gradual cooling of the mass, whilst the crust has not shrunk, not having lost heat. Filled with interest and delight in these things, I reached the railway station at Lauterbrunnen, from' whence the little train is driven far up the mountain, even into the very heart of the Jungfrau, by an electric current generated by a turbine, itself driven by the torrent at our feet, the waters of which have descended from the glaciers far above, to which it will carry us. In a few minutes I was gently gliding in the train up the slope to the " Wengern Alp " and the " Little Scheidegg" a slope up which I have so often in former years painfully struggled on foot for four hours or more. One could to-day watch the whole scene, in ease and comfort, during the two THE JUNGFRAU RAILWAY n hours' ascent of the train. And a marvellous scene it is as one rises to the height of 8000 feet, skirting the glaciers which ooze down the rocky sides of the Jungfrau, and mounting far above some of them. At the Scheidegg I changed into a smaller train, and with some thirty fellow- passengers was carried higher and higher by the faithful, untiring electric current. After a quarter of an hour's progress we paused high above the " snout " of the great Eiger glacier, and descended by a short path on to it, examined the ice, its crevasses and layers, and its " glacier-grains," and watched and heard an avalanche. The last time I was here it took a couple of hours to reach this spot from the Scheidegg, and probably neither I nor any of my fellow-passengers could to-day endure the necessary fatigue of reaching this spot on foot. Then we remounted the train, and on we went into the solid rock of the huge Eiger. The train stops in the rock tunnel and we get out to look, through an opening cut in its side, down the sheer wall of the mountain on to the grassy meadows thousands of feet below. Then we start again, and on we are driven by the current generated away down there in Lauterbriinnen, through the spiral tunnel, mounting a thousand feet more till we are landed at an opening cut on the further side of the rocky Eiger, which admits us to an actual footing on the great glacier called the Eismeer, or Ice-lake. We lunch in a restaurant cut out as a cavern in the solid rock, and survey the wondrous scene. We are now at a height of 1 0,000 feet, and in the real frozen ice-world, hitherto accessible only to the young and vigorous. I have been there in my day with pain, danger, and labour, accom- panied by guides and held up by ropes, but never till now with perfect ease and tranquility and without " turning a hair," or causing either man or beast to labour painfully on my behalf. We had taken two hours 12 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND only from Lauterbrunnen ; in former days we should have started in the small hours of the morning from the Scheidegg, and have climbed through many dangers for some six or seven hours before reaching this spot. I confess that I am not enchanted with all of the modern appliances for saving time and labour the tele- graph, the telephone, the automobile, and the aeroplane. But these mountain railways fill me with satisfaction and gratitude. When the Jungfrau railway was first projected, some athletic Englishmen with heavy boots and ice-axes, protested against the "desecration" of regions till then accessible only to them and to me, and others of our age and strength. They declared that the scenery would be injured by the railway and its troops of "tourists." As well might they protest against the desecration caused by the crawling of fifty house-flies on the dome of St. Paul's. These mountains and glaciers are so vast, and men with their railroads so small, that the latter are negligible in the presence of the former. No disfiguring effect whatever is produced by these mountain railways ; the trains have even ceased to emit smoke since they were worked by electricity. I quite agree with those who object to " funiculars." The carriages on these are hauled up long, straight gashes in the mountain side, which have a hideous and disfiguring appearance. But I look forward with pleasure to the completion of the Jungfrau railway to the summit. I hope that the Swiss engineers will carry it through the mountain, and down along the side of the great Aletsch glacier to the Bel Alp and so to Brieg. That would be a glorious route to the Simplon tunnel and Italy ! I took three hours in the unwearied train descending from the Eismeer to Jnterlaken, and was back in my hotel in comfortable time for dinner, " mightily content with the day's journey," as Mr. Pepys would have said. MOUNTAIN SICKNESS 13 I have always been sensitive to the action of diminished pressure, which produces what is called " mountain sickness " in many people. Many years ago I climbed by the glacier-pass known as the Weissthor from Macugnaga to the Riffel Alp, with a stylographic pen in my pocket. The reservoir of the pen contained a little air, which expanded as the atmospheric pressure diminished, and at 10,000 ft. I found most of the ink emptied into my pocket. Probably one cause of the discomfort called " mountain sickness " arises from a similar expansion of gas contained in the digestive canal, and in the cavities connected with the ear and nose. The more suddenly the change of pressure is effected, the more noticeable is the discomfort. But I was rather please'd than otherwise to note, as I sat in the comfortable railway carriage, that when we passed 8000 ft. in elevation the old familiar giddiness, and tendency to sigh and gasp, came upon me as of yore, as I gathered was the experience of some of my fellow-passengers : and when we were returning, and had descended half-way to Lauterbriinnen, I enjoyed the sense of restored ease in breathing which I well remember when the whole experience was complicated by the fatigue of a long climb. A white-haired American lady was in the train with me ascending to the Eismeer. " I have longed all my life," she said, "to see a glaysher to touch it and walk on it and now I am going to do it at last. I and my daughter here have come right away from America to go on these cars to the glaysher." When we were descending, I asked the old lady if she had been pleased. " I can hardly speak of it rightly," she said. "It seems to me as though I have been standing up there on God's own throne." I do not sympathise with the Alpine monopolist who would grudge that dear old lady, and others like her, the little train and tramway by which alone such people can penetrate to those soul-stirring I 4 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND scenes. They are at least as sensitive to the beauty of the mountains as are the most muscular, most long- winded, and most sun-blistered of our friends the acrobats of the rope and axe. INTERLAKEN ; September, 1909. CHAPTER II SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER IT is the early summer of 1910 and I have but just returned from a visit to Switzerland. The latter part of June and the beginning of July is the best for a stay in that splendid and happy land if one is a natura- list, and cares for the beauty of Alpine meadows, and of the flowers which grow among and upon the rocks near the great glaciers. This year the weather has, no doubt, been exceptionally cold and wet, and at no great height (5000 ft.) we have had snow-storms, even in July. But as compared with that of Paris and London the weather has been delightful. There has been an abundance of magnificent sunshine, and many days of full summer heat and cloudless sky. A fortnight ago (July 1 6th), and on the day before, it was as hot and brilliant in the valley of Chamonix as it can be. Mont Blanc and the Dome de Goutet stood out clear and immaculate against a purple-blue sky, and, as of old, we watched through the hotel telescope a party struggling over the snow to the highest peak. At Chillon the lake of Geneva, day after day, spread out to us its limitless surface of changing colour, now blending in one pearly expanse with the sky so that the distant felucca boats seemed to float between heaven and earth now streaked with emerald and amethystine bands. The huge mountain masses rising with a vast sweep from 16 SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER St. Jingo's shore displayed range after range of bloom-like greys and purples, whilst far away and above delicately glittered like some incredible vision of a heavenly world beyond the sun-lit sky itself the apparition of the snows and rocks of the great Dents du Midi. All this I have left behind me, and have passed back again to dull grey Paris, to the stormy Channel, and to the winter of London's July. The incomparable pleasure which the lakes and valleys and mountains of Switzerland are capable of giving is due to the combination of many distinct sources of delight, each in itself of exceptional character. A month ago, in bright sunshine, I went, once again, by the little electric railway (most blessed invention of our day) from the pine-shaded torrent below to the great Eiger rock- mountain, and through its heart to the glacier beyond, more than 10,000 ft. above sea-level. On the way back I left the train at the foot of the Eiger glacier, and walked down with my companion amongst the rocks of the moraine and over the sparse turf of these highest regions of life. Everywhere was a profusion of gentians, the larger and darker, as well as the smaller, bluest of all blue flowers. The large, plump, yellow globe-flowers (Trollius\ the sulphur-yellow anemone, the glacial white- and-pink buttercup, the Alpine dryad, the Alpine forget- me-nots and pink primroses, the summer crocus, delicate hare-bells, and many other flowers of goodly size were abundant. The grass of Parnassus and the edelweiss were not yet in flower, but lower down the slopes the Alpine rhododendron was showing its crimson bunches of blossom. It is a pity that the Swiss call this plant " Alpenrose," since there is a true and exquisite Alpine rose (which we often found) with deep red flowers, dark- coloured foliage, and a rich, sweet-briar perfume. Lovely as these larger flowers of the higher Alps are, they are ALPINE FLOWERS 17 excelled in fascination by the delicate blue flowers of the Soldanellas, like little fringed foolscaps, by the brilliant little red and purple Alpine snap-dragon, and by the cushion-forming growths of saxifrages and other minute plants which encrust the rocks and bear, closely set in their compact, green, velvet-like foliage, tiny flowers as brilliant as gems. A ruby-red one amongst these is " the stalkless bladder-wort" (Silene acaulis), having no more resemblance at first sight to the somewhat ramshackle bladder-wort of our fields than a fairy has to a fish- wife. There are many others of these cushion-forming, diminutive plants, with white, blue, yellow, and pink florets. Examined with a good pocket lens, they reveal unex- pected beauties of detail so graceful and harmonious that one wonders that no one has made carefully coloured pictures of them of ten times the size of nature, and published them for all the world to enjoy. Busily moving within their charmed circles we see, with our lens, minute insects which, attracted by the honey, are carrying the pollen of one flower to another, and effecting for these little flowers what bees and moths do for the larger species. Thus we are reminded that all this loveliness, this exquisite beauty, is the work of natural selection the result of the survival of favourable variations in the struggle for existence. These minute symmetrical forms, this wax-like texture, these marvellous rows of coloured, enamel-like encrustation, have been selected from almost endless and limitless possible variations, and have been accumulated and maintained there as they are in all their beauty, by survival of the fittest by natural selection. All beauty of living things, it seems, is due to Nature's selection, and not only all beauty of colour and form, but that beauty of behaviour and excellence of inner quality which we call "goodness." The fittest, that which has 2 i8 SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER survived and will survive in the struggle of organic growth, is (we see it in these flowers) in man's estimation the beautiful. Is it possible to doubt that just as we approve and delightedly revel in the beauty created by " natural selection," so we give our admiration and reverence, without question, to " goodness," which also is the creation of Nature's great unfolding ? Goodness (shall we say virtue and high quality ?) is, like beauty, the inevitable product of the struggle of living things, and is Nature's favourite no less than man's desire. When we know the ways of Nature, we shall discover the source and meaning of beauty, whether of body or of mind. As these thoughts are drifting through our enchanted dream we suddenly hear a deep and threatening roar from the mountain-side. We look up and see an avalanche falling down the rocks of the Jungfrau. The vast mountain, with its dazzling vestment of eternal snow, and its slowly creeping, green - fissured glaciers, towers above into the cloudless sky. In an instant the mind travels from the microscopic details of organic beauty, which but a moment ago held it entranced, to the contemplation of the gigantic and elemental force whose tremendous work is even now going on close to where we stand. The contrast, the range from the minute to the gigantic, is prodigious yet exhila- rating, and strangely grateful. How many millions of years did it take to form those rocks (many of them are stratified, v/ater-laid deposits) in the depths of the ocean ? How many more to twist and bend them and raise them to their present height ? And what inconceivably long persistence of the wear and tear of frost and snow and torrent has it required to excavate in their hard bosoms these deep, broad valleys thousands of feet below us, and to leave these strangely moulded mountain peaks still high above us ? And that beauty of the sunlit sky and of the FLOWERS OF THE MEADOWS AND WOODS 19 billowy ice-field and of the colours of the lake below and of the luminous haze and the deep blue shade in the valley how is that related to the beauty of the flowers ? Truly enough, it is not a beauty called forth by natural selection. It is primordial ; it is the beauty of great light itself. The response to its charm is felt by every living thing, even by the smallest green plant and the invisible animal- cule, as it is by man himself. As I stand on the mountain- side we are all, from animalcule to man, sympathising and uniting, as members of one great race, in our adoration of the sun. And in doing this we men are for the moment close to and in happy fellowship with our beautiful, though speechless, relatives who also live. Even the destructive bacteria which are killed by the sun probably enjoy an exquisite shudder in the process which more than compensates them for their extinction. The pleasures of flower-seeking in Switzerland are by no means confined to the great heights. At moderate heights (4000 to 5000 ft.) you have the Alpine meadows, and below those the rich-soiled woods which fill in the sides of the torrent-worn valleys. You cannot see an Alpine meadow after July, as it is cut down by then. It is at its best in June. It bears very little grass, and con- sists almost entirely of flowers. In places the hare-bells and Canterbury bells and the bugloss are so abundant as to make a whole valley-floor blue as in MacWhirter's picture. But more often the blue is intermixed with the balls of red clover and the spikes of a splendid pale pink polygonum (a sort of buckwheat) and of a very large -and handsome plantain. Large yellow gentians, mulleins, the nearly black and the purple orchids, vetches of all colours, the Alpine clover with four or five enormous flowers in a head instead of fifty little ones, the Astrantias (like a circular brooch made up of fifty gems each mounted on a long elastic wire and set vibrating side by side), the sky- 20 SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER blue forget-me-nots, and the golden potentillas, are usual components of the Alpine meadow. At Murren, and no doubt commonly elsewhere, there are a few very beautiful grasses among the flowers, but the most remarkable grass is one (Poa alpina), which has on every spikelet or head a bright green serpent-like streamer. Each of these "streamers" is, in fact, a young grass-plant, budded off " viviparously," as it is called, from the flower-head, or " spikelet," and having nothing to do with the proper fertilised seed or grain. The young plants so budded fall to the ground, and striking root rapidly, grow into separate individuals. It is probably owing to some condition in Alpine meadows adverse to the production of fertilised seed that this viviparous method of reproduction has been favoured, since it occurs also in an Alpine meadow-plant allied to the buckwheat, namely, Polygomim vivipannn (not the kind mentioned above), where the lower flowers are converted into little red bulbs, by which the plant propagates. Both the viviparous grass and the polygonum are found in England. In fact, a very large proportion of Alpine plants occur in parts of the British islands (a legacy from the glacial period), though many which are abundant in Switzerland are rare and local here. At a lower level, in the woods, we come upon other plants, not really " Alpine " at all, but of great and special beauty. We found four kinds of winter-green {Pyrold}, one with a very large, solitary flower, white and wax-like, and the beautiful white butterfly-orchid, with nectaries three quarters of an inch long, and other large- flowered orchids. We were anxious to find the noble Martagon lily, and hunted in many glades and forest borders for it. At last, on a concealed bank in a wood, between Glion and Les Avants, it revealed itself in quantity, many specimens standing over three feet in height. Martagon is an Arabic word, signifying a Turkish THE HERB PARIS 21 cap. A very strange and uncanny-looking lily, which I had never seen before, turned up near Kandersteg, at the Blue Lake, beloved of Mr. H. G. Wells. This is "the Herb Paris." It has four narrow out-stretched green sepals, and four still narrower green petals, eight large stamens, and a purple seed capsule. Its broad oval leaves are also arranged in whorls of four. Its name has nothing to do with the " ville lumiere," nor with the Trojan judge of female beauty, but refers to the symmetry and "parity" of its component parts. I was not surprised to find that " the Herb Paris " is poisonous, and -was anciently used in medicine. It looks weird and deadly. Marmots, glacier fleas (spring-tails, not true fleas), admirable trout, and burbot (the fresh-water cod, called " lote " in French), outrageous wood-gnats, which English people call by a Portuguese name as soon as they are on the Continent, and singing birds (usually one is too late in the season to hear them) were our zoological accom- paniment. There were singularly few butterflies or other insects, probably in consequence of the previous wet weather. July, 1910. CHAPTER III GLETSGH VARIED and uncertain as the weather was in Switzer- land during July of the year 1910, it showed a more decided character when I returned there at the end of August. For three weeks there was no flood of sunshine, no blazing of a cloudless blue sky, which is the one condition necessary to the perfection of the beauty of Swiss moun- tains, valleys and lakes. The Oberland was grey and shapeless, the Lauterbriinnen valley chilly and threatening; even the divine Jungfrau herself, when not altogether obliterated by the monotonous, impenetrable cloud, loomed in steely coldness " a sterile promontory." Crossing the mountains from the Lake of Thun, we came to Montreux, only to find the pearl-like surface of the great Lake Leman transformed into lead. Not once in eight days did the celestial fortress called Les Dents du Midi reveal its existence, although we knew it was there, immensely high and remote, far away above the great buttresses of the Rhone valley. So completely was it blotted out by the conversion of that most excellent canopy, the air, into a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours, that it was difficult to imagine that it was still existing, and perhaps even glowing in sunshine above the pall of cloud. Italy, surely, we thought, would be free from this dreadful gloom. The southern slopes of the Alps are often cloudless FROM BAVENO TO THE RHONE GLACIER 23 when the colder northern valleys are overhung with impenetrable mist. In four hours you can pass now from the Lake of Geneva through the hot Simplon Tunnel to the Lago Maggiore. So, hungering for sunshine, we packed, and ran in the ever-ready train through to Baveno. Thirty years ago we should have had to drive over the Simplon a beautiful drive, it is true but we should have taken sixteen hours in actually travelling from Montreux, and have had to pass a night en route at Brieg ! A treacherous gleam of sunshine lasting half an hour welcomed us on emerging from the Simplon tunnel, and then for eight days the same leaden aspect of sky, mountain, and lake as that which we had left in Switzerland was maintained. Even this could not spoil altogether the beauty and interest of the fine old garden of the Borromeo family on the Isola Bella. Really big cypress trees, magnificent specimens of the Weymouth pine the white pine of the United States, Pinus strobus, first brought from the St. Lawrence in 1705, and planted in Wiltshire by Lord Weymouth a splendid camphor tree, strange varieties of the hydrangea, and many other old-fashioned shrubs adorn the quaint and well-designed terraces of that seat of ancient peace. The granite quarries close behind Baveno, and the cutting and chiselling of the granite by a population of some 2000 quarrymen and stonemasons, were not deprived of their human interest by rain and skies more grey than the granite itself. But, at last, we gave up Italy in despair, retreated through the tunnel one morning, and an hour after mid-day were careering in a carriage along the Rhone Valley with jingling of bells and much cracking of a harmless whip upwards on a drive of seven hours to the Rhone glacier, to the hotel called " Gletsch," staking all on the last chance of a change in the weather. We passed the enclosed meadow near Brieg, whence 24 GLETSGH three days later the splendidly daring South-American aviator started on his flight across the Alps, only to die after victory a hero, whose courage and fatal triumph were worthy of a better cause. After some hours, passing many a black-timbered mountain village the houses of which, set on stone piles, are the direct descendants of the pile-supported lake dwellings of the Stone Age on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel we came to the upper and narrower part of the valley. The road as- cended by zig-zags through pine forests, in which the large blue gentian, with flowers and leaves in double rows on a gracefully bowed stem, were abundant. In open places the barberry, with its dense clusters of crimson fruit, was so abundunt as actually to colour the landscape, whilst a huge yellow mullen nearly as big as a hollyhock, and bright Alpine " pinks," were there in profusion. Before the night fell, a long, furry animal, twice the size of a squirrel, and of dark brown colour, crossed the road with a characteristic undulating move- ment, a few feet in front of our carriage. It was a pine- marten, the largest of the weasel and pole-cat tribe, still to be found in our own north country. It must not be confused with the paler beech-marten of Anne of Brittany, which often takes up its abode in the roofs of Breton houses, according to my own experience in Dinard and the neighbourhood. Night fell, and our horses were still toiling up the mountain road. Impenetrable chasms lay below, and vast precipices above us. We crossed a bridge, and seemed in the darkness to plunge into the sheer rock itself, and, though thrilled with a delightful sense of mystery and awe, were feeling a little anxiety at the prospect of another hour among these gloomy, in- tangible dangers, when we rounded a projecting rock, and suddenly a brilliant constellation burst into view in the sky. It was the electric outfit of the Belvedere Hotel, A GLACIER BY THE ROADSIDE 25 7500 feet above the sea, and far up more than a thousand feet above us and the glacier's snout. In another minute the great arc lamps of the Gletsch Hotel, close to us, blazed forth, and we were welcomed into its snug hall and warmed by the great log-fire burning on its hospitable hearth. The next day we were early afoot in the most brilliant sunshine, under a cloudless sky really perfect Alpine weather. In the shade the persisting night-frost told of the great height of the marvellous amphitheatre which lay before us. The valley by which we had mounted the previous night abruptly abandons its steep gradient and gorge-like character, and widens into a flat, boulder-strewn plain, a little over a mile in diameter, surrounded, except for the narrow gap by which we had entered, by the steep, rocky sides of huge mountains. At the far end of the plain, a mile off, the great Rhone glacier comes toppling over the precipice, a snowy white, frozen cascade of a thousand feet in height. It looks even nearer than it is, and the gigantic teeth of white ice at the top of the fall seem no bigger than sentry-boxes, though we know they are more nearly the size of church steeples. The celebrated Furca road zig-zags up the mountain side for a thousand feet close to the glacier, and when you drive up it and reach the height of the Belvedere, you can step on to the ice close to the road. Then you can mount on to the flat, unbroken surface of the broad glacier stream above the fall, and trace the glacier to the snow-covered mountain-tops in which it originates. There is no such close and intimate view of a glacier to be had elsewhere in Europe by the traveller in diligence or carriage. We walked by the side of the infant Rhone, among the pebbles and boulders, to the overhanging snout of the great glacier from beneath which the river emerges. A very beautiful wine-red species of dwarf 26 GLETSGH willow-herb (Efilobtum Fleischer?) was growing abun- dantly in tufts among the pebbles, and many other Alpine plants greeted our eyes. The heat of the sun was that of midsummer, whilst a delicate air of icy freshness diffused itself from the great frozen mass in front of us. Some large blocks of the glacer ice had fallen from above, and lay conveniently for examination. Whilst the walls of the ice-caves which have been cut into this and other glaciers present a perfectly smooth, continuous surface of clear ice, these fragments which had fallen from the surface exposed to the heat of the sun were, as seen in the mass, white and opaque. When a stick was thrust into the mass, it broke into many-sided lumps of the size of a tennis-ball, which separated, and fell apart in a heap, like assorted coals thrown from a scuttle, though white instead of black. These were the curious glacier nodules, " grains du glacier," or " Gletcherkorne," characteristic of glacier ice as contrasted with lake ice. This structure of the glacier ice is peculiar to it, and is only made evident where the sun's rays penetrate it and melt the less pure ice which holds together the crystalline nodules. According to Dr. J. Young Buchanan, these nodules are masses of ice crystals comparatively free from mineral matter, whilst the water around them, which freezes less readily, contains mineral impurities in solution. The presence of saline matter in solution lowers, in pro- portion to its amount, the freezing-point of water. Accordingly, although frozen into one solid mass with the nodules, the cementing ice melts under the heat of the penetrating rays of the sun sooner that is, at a lower temperature than do the purer crystalline nodules, and allows them to separate. It is owing to this that the exposed surface of glacier ice is white and powdery, disintegrated by the superficial heat, and forming a rough surface, on which one can safely walk. Lake ice does not CHANGES IN THE GLACIER 27 break up in this manner under the sun's rays, but as it melts retains its smooth, slippery surface. It is formed in water, and not from the cementing and regelation of the powdery crystalline snow, as is glacier ice. Pictures of the Rhone glacier published in the year 1820 and in the eighteenth century show that in old days the terminal ice-fall did not end abruptly in a narrowed " snout," as it does now, but spread out into a very broad half-dome or fan-shaped, apron-like expanse, some 700 ft. high and a quarter of a mile broad at the base. It was considered one of the wonders of Switzerland, and was pictured in an exaggerated way in travellers' books. In 1873, when I first drove down the Furka Road and saw the Rhone glacier, this wonderful, apron- like, terminal expansion of the glacier was still in exis- tence. It has now completely disappeared. In those days, and for many years later, there was only a mule- path over the adjacent Grimsel Pass, but now there is a carriage road leading out of the Rhone glacier's basin northwards to Meiringen, whilst the old-established Furka Road, at the other side of the amphitheatre, leads east- ward to Andermatt, the St. Gothard, and the Lake of Lucerne. Hence three great roads now meet at Gletsch. Before leaving this wondrous spot we inspected some plump marmots, who were leading a happy life of ease and plenty in a large cage erected in front of the hotel ; then in absolutely perfect weather we mounted the Grimsel Road. We heard the frequent whistling of uncaged marmots as we ascended, and saw many of the little beasts sitting up on the rocks and diving into concealing crevices as we approached, just as do their smaller but closely allied cousins the prairie marmots (so- called "prairie dogs") of North America. The view, as one ascends the Grimsel, of the snow-peaks around Gletsch is a fine one in itself, but is vastly enhanced in 28 GLETSGH beauty by the plunge downwards of the rocky gorge made by the Rhone as it leaves the flat-bottomed amphitheatre of its birth. The top of the Grimsel Pass, which is a little over 7000 ft. above sea-level, is the most desolate and bare of all such mountain passes. The rock is dark grey, almost black, and of an unusually hard character. It is unstratified, and so resistant that it is everywhere worn into smooth, rounded surfaces, instead of being splintered and shattered. A small, black-looking lake at the top of the pass contains to this day the bones of 500 Austrians and French who fought here in 1799. It is called the Totensee, or Dead Men's Lake. At this point one stands on a great watershed, dividing the rivers of the north from the rivers of the south. You may put one foot in a rivulet which is carrying water down the Aar Valley, and through the Lakes of Brienz and of Thun to the Rhine and North Sea, whilst you keep the other in another little stream, whose particles will pass by the Rhone gorge and valley through the Lake of Geneva to the great Rhone and the Mediterranean. Three incomparably fine days September I7th, iSth, and I9th atoned for three weeks of sunless cloud. One of them we spent in the high valley of Rosenlaui, where are hairy-lipped gentians and the blue-iced glacier, but of these I have not space to tell. Then the clouds and the rain resumed their odious domination, and we left Lucerne and its lakes invisible, overwhelmed in grey fog, and made for Paris. October, 1910. CHAPTER IV GLACIERS PEOPLE who have not seen a glacier, walked on a glacier, chipped into it with an ice-axe, and followed it up from its melting " snout " and decidedly dirty, rock- strewn lower end to the regions where it is pure and white, split into yawning chasms and raised into great teeth or pinnacles those, indeed, who have not followed it yet further from these middle heights, far on up the rocky sides of a great mountain, until the region is reached where it ceases to be ice, and becomes a mass of soft, powdery snow do not know one of the most curious, unimaginable, and powerful agencies in Nature. We inhabitants of the British Isles, were we confined to our limited territory, and un-informed by travellers as to the wonders of the snow-world, would never guess or infer from anything we ever see here that such things as glaciers exist. There is no parallel to the peculiarity, the unexpected and astonishing quality, of a glacier. Even a volcano is not so remote from what one could have expected. Rivers, lakes, and seas we know, and we can imagine them bigger and deeper. Waterfalls and great white clouds, in fact all the forms of water, are familiar to us. Mountains, even winter snow-capped mountains, we sometimes see in our own island, and can imagine them bigger. We have handled ice and snow, too. Yet nothing which we know by experience here prepares us 30 GLACIERS for the complete change in the appearance, character, and behaviour of snow when it is piled in vast thickness on the slopes of mountains so high that it is ever renewed, and never melts away on their peaks and shoulders. We are accustomed to see snow slowly melt and run away as water, and the more observant will have noted that in prolonged frost, snow, even when piled in heaps by the roadside, disappears without thawing. It evapor- ates, slowly but surely, straight away into the form of gas invisible aqueous vapour. That is a rather unusual property for a solid body to possess. In that way a certain return of evaporated snow to the atmosphere from which it was precipitated in crystalline flakes takes place. But the amount is small. We are not accustomed to find a solid body evaporating. Volatile liquids are common, but volatile solids are unusual. The metals and rocks do not behave in this way. The only familiar parallels to ice and snow in this respect are the vegetable product camphor and some allied bodies. They pass directly from the solid to the gaseous state, and the invisible gaseous camphor can be precipitated as " a snow " of crystalline camphor on a glass shade placed over a lump of that substance. There are some bodies the metal bismuth is one of them, sulphur and hard paraffin also are of the number, and water is another which in passing from the liquid to the solid state expand actually increase in volume. It is far more usual, and seems to us a more " natural " thing, for a liquid to contract when, owing to cooling, it becomes solid. The exceptional property possessed by water of expanding when frozen is of enormous effect in the wear and tear of the earth's surface. It is thus that the strongest water-pipes, which the combined wickedness and ignorance of plumbers and architects lead them to place on the out- side of our houses instead of inside near the chimneys, SNOW SQUEEZED TO ICE 31 are burst by frost. And similarly it is owing to this swelling of water when freezing that the wet soil and surface rocks are, when frozen in winter, broken and rendered permeable to later rains. But even more striking is the result of this bursting action of freezing water upon the great rocky sides of mountains. The water, formed by melting snow and by rain, lodges in cracks and fissures of the rocks, and, when the cold of winter comes on, it freezes and consequently swells in volume, and so shatters the imprisoning stone. Thus it breaks off huge masses and helps to wear away the mountain peaks and sides. It is owing to the expansion of water on becoming solid that a given bulk of ice is lighter than the same bulk of water, and that therefore ice floats on water, and our streams and lakes do not freeze solid from bottom to top. Important and exceptional as are these properties of water producing great results, which we can observe in the frozen world of the Alps they do not help us to the understanding of a glacier, nor would they suggest to us as a natural process the production of glaciers by the change of great heaped-up masses of snow on mountain sides. The one familiar property of snow, or powdered ice, which has to do with the conversion of mountain snow into the huge rivers of solid ice called " glaciers," is the curious " binding " quality which enables us to make " snowballs " by squeezing handfuls of snow. Every schoolboy knows that if one takes up a double handful of snow during a hard frost and lightly presses it, it remains a loose powder. But if one squeezes the snow very firmly and persistently (or with less squeezing if a slight thaw has set in), the particles adhere to one another, and the snow becomes hard and more or less compact ice. Boys consider it an unfair and brutal thing to squeeze a snowball so much as to make it thoroughly solid, since it then becomes as dangerous a missile as a big stone. 32 GLACIERS A certain moderation in the manufacture is held to be correct, giving the snowball a firm crust, but one which can easily break on the face of the opponent at whom it is thrown, thus allowing the still powdery interior lightly to overwhelm him. This property of snow viz. that its particles become, as it were, fused together so as to form a continuous mass of ice when it is squeezed (that is, subjected to pressure) has been carefully examined. The snow par- ticles seem at first sight to behave as though they were viscid or " sticky " in fact, as powdered wax or resin would behave. Yet they are not really viscid at all, but consist of loose crystals of ice, small but hard, and with no tendency to " flow " or soften. Their binding property is found to be due to the fact that pressure lowers the degree of heat, as registered by a thermometer, at which ice melts. The same lowering of the melting-point by pressure has been observed in other bodies which expand when solidifying for instance, sulphur and paraffin. In ordinary circumstances ice melts and becomes water at the temperature registered as 32 deg. on the Fahrenheit scale or zero on the Centigrade scale. A pressure equal to a weight of 2000 Ib. on the square inch of surface lowers the melting-point of ice by I deg. Centi- grade. A very much smaller pressure has its due propor- tional effect, and lowers the melting-point a little. So that merely squeezing powdered ice in the hand or in a squeeze-mould causes it to melt a little and even at the great degree of cold (sometimes experienced in the winter on the Continent, but rarely in England) of 18 deg. below zero Centigrade, which is very nearly equal to zero Fahrenheit, a French experimenter has, by applying to ice a pressure (a weight) of several thousand pounds to the square inch, converted it into water. It is, of course, obvious that when ice is caused to melt ever so little by REGELATION 33 pressure, the removal of the pressure will lead to the re- freezing of the water produced. Hence we see that by " kneading " the powder of ice-crystals which we called " snow " a minute quantity of water is first produced by the squeezing, and then immediately is re-frozen when the pressure is relaxed by the " kneading " hand. Con- sequently at every squeeze a little air is driven out from the powder, a little water takes its place, and when the squeeze is relaxed this becomes solid, and cements neighbouring crystals together, until, by repeated squeez- ing and relaxing, the whole lot of crystals may be joined together into a solid mass by the re-freezing of the water formed by the slight amount of melting. The ice so formed encloses a great many tiny, almost invisible bubbles of air. The process of melting by pressure and re-freezing when the pressure is 'removed is called " regelation." A glacier is nothing but a huge snowball formed by regelation. The warmth of the sun causes the surface layer of snow to melt a little; the water so formed percolates into the deeper layers where the heat of the sun does not penetrate. It freezes again, and the solid mass lying on a steep slope begins to press and move downwards. It breaks and falls, and "regelates" with neighbouring similar masses owing to their mutual pres- sure. Always the slowly, or maybe quickly, sliding masses adhere by regelation, and add to their solid bulk by this kind of adhesion just as the much smaller rolling snowball made by boys in the winter binds to it the snow over which it is turned, and increases its solidity and bulk at a rate which has become proverbial. Snow which falls when the air is at a temperature below freezing has the form of six-rayed stars or crystals, of great beauty and variety. In the highest Alpine regions the fallen snow gradually loses its crystalline 3 34 GLACIERS form, and becomes granular or powdery. It is known as the "neve," or " firn." Occasionally it is coloured red by a microscopic plant called Sphcerella nivalis, and when it melts a certain kind of wheel animalcule often inhabits the small pools so formed both in the Alps and on the Arctic and Antarctic snows. Generally the neve remains firm and hard ; the foot sinks but little into it. The water which results from its melting sinks through it and freezes with the snow below into a solid layer. Each year's deposit forms a layer from I ft. to 3 ft. in thickness, and is covered up to a great depth by the next year's snow, which again during the warmer weather contributes its frozen layer. Thus below the surface the neve has a banded or stratified structure, and when it has passed in the course of years far from the place of its original formation down the rocky bed of the creeping glacier, you may still observe this laminated or stratified structure of annual layers. The neve is often of very great depth or thickness. At the top or " source " of many Alpine glaciers it is as much as loooft. thick. Avalanches are falls of the imperfectly consolidated snow on slopes too steep to permit more than a small thickness of the powdery material to lie at rest. An immense quantity of snow is thus regularly brought down by avalanches to the lower regions, and is melted every spring, when there is a loosening of frozen bonds by the daily sunshine. The deeper layers of the neve are under vast pressure from the overlying layers, and become crushed and regelated into solid ice. They slowly slide as a continuous layer of great thickness down the slopes on which they have accumulated, and as they advance the powdery snow on the surface both evaporates and melts until the deeper- lying ice is bare and shows on the actual surface. The neve* now ceases to exist as such ; it has become a glacier, a slowly-moving river of solid ice. It is this MOVEMENT OF GLACIERS 35 incredible moving thing which no one would ever have foreseen as the product of a heap of snow, no matter how vast or where accumulated. As it moves downwards the mass is subjected to immense pressure, both from its own weight resting on the rocks, and from lateral pressure or squeezing from the sides of the bed or hollow, which hold it as a river of water is held by its banks. The con- tinuous and varied pressure and pull, tear, and squeeze of the huge mass, in its irregular bed, alter a great deal the character of the ice as it advances. Glaciers differ in length according to the amount of snow which is annually furnished by the high collecting ground of the neve, and also according to the steepness of the bed along which they travel, as well as to some extent in relation to the greater or less heat of the valleys into which they descend. The fact that the ice which is melting away at the snout, or lower end, of a glacier has gradually descended from above, has been long known by the mountain folk, but it was only in the last century that the rate of descent was measured. It varies from 150 ft. to 1000 ft. a year ; it varies in different parts of the same glacier, and at different seasons of the year, and in different years. In the summer an average sample of a glacier will advance a foot and a half a day in the middle, and a foot or less at the sides. It has been calculated that a particle of ice would take about 500 years to descend from the summit of the most beautiful of all the great Swiss mountains the Jungfrau to the end of her greatest glacier, that called the great Aletsch, which expands its melting " snout " below the Bel Alp over the Rhone valley. The Swiss glaciers had been, on the whole, increas- ing in size for some 500 years until 1820, when they retreated until 1840, and again advanced until 1860. Since then they have greatly diminished, though some are now advancing again. Many are the lamentations of old 36 GLACIERS lovers of the Swiss mountain valleys over the shrinking of the Mer de Glace of Chamonix, the Aar Glacier of Rosenlaui, and the Rhone Glacier. But they will extend again some day. The Yengutsa Glacier in the Himalayas has increased two miles in length since 1892. Another Himalayan glacier (that of Hassanabad) had slowly shrunk back during a long period until seven years ago it was six miles shorter than it had been fifty years before ; then suddenly it advanced over the lost ground and actually grew six miles pushed its snout forward six miles, back to its old position in three months ! The great extension at a remote prehistoric period of the Swiss glaciers, and the general existence in past ages of glaciers and an ice-covering of the land in Central and Northern Europe, are proved by the following four pi( of evidence : First, the existence of " moraines," tho< huge embankment-like piles of broken rocks, many evei hundreds of miles distant from the existing glaciers, oftei in positions which it is clear from the " lie of the land the present glaciers would have reached if they had beei enormously increased in size ; second, the existence ol detached rocks, called " erratic blocks," which are fouiK perched on the surface of the ground at a vast distance from the mountains from which their mineral structure shows them to have been carried ; third, the occurrence oi rock surfaces far from existing glaciers, which nevertheless show the peculiar polishing and scratching which is mad( only by glaciers ; fourth, the existence in more southeri regions of the remains of plants and animals of kind; belonging to a cold climate, and now only found in th( far north, as well as the existence of Alpine plants ii regions now separated from the cold upper parts of Swit- zerland (where they flourish) by vast expanses of wan country, over which they could not spread in the presenl condition of the climate. VAST SIZE OF ANCIENT GLACIERS 37 The two great glaciers that of the Rhone valley and that of the Rhine valley have been carefully traced, and their length and breadth and depth ascertained. The glaciers which now seem to us so enormous and powerful, as they push their snouts into the end of the Rhone valley and the side valleys of the canton of the Valais the great trough which runs for a hundred and twenty miles from near the Furca Pass to the Lake of Geneva are but the surviving roots of the immense Rhone glacier which filled the whole of the valley and the Lake of Geneva itself, and flowed on as far as, and even beyond, Lyons ! The Rhone glacier, the great Aletsch, the Gorner, and very many others extended along their present course, met, and formed one huge advancing stream of ice ! The great glacier of the Rhine extended from the Swiss Alps northwards as far as Coblenz, on the Rhine ; others at the same time spread down the southern slopes of the Alps into Lombardy. We find the moraines of the vast Rhone glacier at various parts of its course, these vast heaps of rock fragments having been piled up and left by the glacier, some when it was at its fullest extension, some as it shrank towards its present pygmy dimensions. The high, long terrace of St. Paul, which one sees more than a thousand feet above the Lake of Geneva, at Evian, is a moraine, and all over Switzerland, in the lower valleys, fifty or a hundred miles away from existing glaciers, you come upon these strange, long, straight hills, resembling enormous railway embankments, just as the moraines at the sides of the existing glaciers resemble ordinary railway embankments. We can ascer- tain the height to which the old huge glaciers filled the present valleys by the polishing and scratching of the rocks as well as by the remains of moraines. At Martigny, where the Rhone valley takes a sharp turn, the glacier filled it to a height of 5000 ft. above the present 38 GLACIERS river ! At Geneva it stood as a solid, continuous sheet more than 3000 ft. over the level of the present city and lake ; and it spread out as an immense covering of solid ice right away to the Jura Mountains beyond Neuchatel and its lake, its surface there being 3000 ft. above the present level of the lake ! A vast sea of ice in fact covered the whole country, with the exception of the high mountain-tops, from Lyons to Basle and along the Rhine- land to Coblenz in one direction, and across Bavaria to beyond Munich and Salzburg ! Whilst this was the con- dition of Switzerland more northern regions were also completely involved in an ice-covering. Glaciers existed in Wales and Scotland, as proved by the moraines still left there, the erratic blocks, and the ice-polished and scratched rocks of the mountain valleys. The whole Scandinavian peninsula was overwhelmed by a vast glacier. The ice from the Norwegian glaciers extended to our Eastern shores, and immense deposits of irregular ice- borne fragments were accumulated there, and again and again torn up and redeposited by the water and by float- ing ice (the " drift " and the " boulder clay " of East Anglia). The whole of the northern half of the temperate zone was thus glaciated or ice-ridden. This astounding and terrible state of things is what is referred to as " the glacial period." The inquiry as to what were the causes of this extremely different condition of regions of the earth, now so fertile and richly inhabited, is a pressing one. We must be anxious to know how it came about and whether it is likely to come again. One result of the great amount of study given to the subject during late years is the discovery that there has not been one glacial period but at least four, separated from one another by long warm periods in which the ice retreated to something like its present limitations and then again overwhelmed the land. And DISTINCT GLACIAL PERIODS 39 the curious thing is that three of these have all occurred in the quite late geological period which we call "Pleistocene," since (as an instance which will have some familiarity for English readers) the accumulation of the shelly marine deposits in the southern area of the North Sea which we call the Red Crag and Coralline Crag of Suffolk, and the Yellow and Black Crag of Antwerp. One glacial period immediately preceded the Red Crag. These deposits (called " Pliocene ") are not very old or deep in a diagram representing the thickness of the various strata of the earth's crust. They have only some 200 ft. above them, whilst below them there are (before we come to the chalk, a great landmark in the geology of this part of the world) 2400 ft. of the sands and clays which are called Miocene and Eocene ! Passing on downwards from the uppermost " chalk " to the Silurian strata (without going any further down), there are 29,000 ft. of deposit ! So we see that the three or more glacial periods and interludes of the Pleistocene period corresponds to a very brief chapter of geological history, and that the latest. In fact, we know that man chipped his flint implements and dwelt in caves in Europe before the greatest of these glacial periods. When we examine the deposits of the periods preceding the latest Pliocene, and the fossilised remains of plants and animals contained in them, it is the fact that we get no indication of other and earlier " glacial periods " in this part of the world, until we get into a very remote period before that of the chalk and the oolites. The " breccias," or deposits, of large angular rock fragments of the new red sandstone or " Triassic " period bear indications, in the form of scratches and polishing of the stones, of the action of glacier ice. But the negative evidence is not conclu- sive, and it may well be that glacial periods earlier than those of the latest epoch (the Pleistocene) have come and gone, but left no evidence of their occurrence in the much 4 o GLACIERS altered and scattered deposits which form the rocks of the earth's crust. The most striking fact which the investigation of this subject has brought into prominence is this : The exten- sion of the glaciers even to the limit which was reached in the last great glacial period of prehistoric times does not imply any very extreme climate. That is to say, a small change in our present climate would bring back the exten- sion of glaciers, and give us another glacial period. Glaciers require heat as well as cold heat to raise the vapour from adjacent regions, which is then condensed as snow on the higher and colder territory. The presence of an excess of aqueous vapour in the atmosphere, even without the forma- tion of cloud, has a very large and important result in stopping the access of heat from the sun to the region of the earth protected by the moist atmosphere. An increase of watery vapour in the atmosphere of the northern hemi- sphere would materially lower its temperature. A succes- sion of damp summers would do more to enlarge the glaciers than a series of severe winters. It is estimated by competent authorities that a fall in the average annual temperature of only 10 F. (provided that the summers were cold and damp) would suffice in a few decades to bring about the return of glacial conditions in the temperate region of the northern hemisphere. The present snow-line, or level of perpetual snow, is, in this part of the world, at the height of 9000 ft. above sea- level. As we ascend from the sea-level the temperature decreases by about i F. for every 350 ft. we mount.- A fall of 10 in temperature would accordingly bring the snow-line down by 3500 ft. that is, to 5500 ft. above sea- level and the lower limit to which the glaciers reach, which is now about 4000 ft. above sea-level, would descend to 1200 ft., which is lower than the level of Geneva. Changes in the outline of the continents and in CAUSES OF GLACIAL PERIODS 41 the direction of the great warm currents of the ocean, together with changes in the growth of forest and the extent of desert land on the continents, might, by affecting the habitual disposition of cloud and of vapour, go far to reduce the average annual temperature of north temperate regions by 10. It has, on the other hand, been held that the periodic and regular " wobbling " of the earth as it spins on its axis is largely accountable for the fall of temperature in the temperate zone at regularly recurring intervals. The axis of rotation of the earth moves round in a circle, as one may see the stem of a well-spun top slowly move in a circle whilst the top " sleeps." The earth takes about 26,000 years to complete its wobble, and in that cycle there is a period when there is least and a period when there is most sunshine falling on the polar regions owing to the difference in the inclination of the pole to the sun. It is held that this difference is enough to produce the fall of i o F. required to give us a " glacial period " in this part of the world. At any rate, in combination with the changes conducing to formation of vapour and cloud which I have mentioned above, it would probably be effective. Geologists are not agreed on this subject, but they have established, as I have stated above by definite proof the recurrence of glacial periods separated by long intervals of warmer climate during the latest period of geological time, the Pleistocene. The most convincing proof of the occurrence of three periods of great extension of European glaciers with intervals of a milder climate has been obtained by studying the ancient moraines. The great mass of heaped-up rock fragments left as a moraine by a once extended glacier which has dwindled and retreated, becomes altered on its surface in the course of a few thousand years by change and decomposition of the rock 42 GLACIERS fragments. A special surface-layer is produced. Now when the glacier again, after some thousands of years, extends and deposits a new moraine over the old one, and again retreats, it is found to be possible to distinguish the later from the earlier moraine by the " special surface- layer " of the old moraine, which marks it off from the new material piled over it. Thus three extensions have been traced in Bavaria, and in other regions within the area of the great Swiss glaciers of the glacial period. These " extensions " and " retreats " are not small variations of two or three miles, such as we see occurring in Switzer- land under our eyes within recent years. They refer to differences of hundreds of miles in length, and to incalculable differences in the volume of solid ice concerned, due to periods of long-continued climatic differences separated by many thousand years. It is not possible to induce any cautious geologist to state how many thousand years separate us from the last great glacial extension, nor how many thousands of years separated it and those which occurred earlier in the Pleistocene epoch and at the end of the Pliocene from one another. If the astronomical cause were really the determining one, we might conclude that intervals of about 26,000 years were what occurred between the full severity of each glacial period. But on other grounds such intervals are considered to be too short, and doubt and speculation surround the attempt to put the period into figures of so many thousand years. For instance, if 26,000 years is all that should separate a future glacial period from the last (which seems to have been the greatest and most severe), we do not get enough time (even supposing that we are within a couple of thousand years of another glacial period) to account for all the changes in the surface of Western Europe, and in the animals and men upon it. The Neandermen, the mammoth, the hyaena, the lion, the rhinoceros, bison, and DATE OF LAST GLACIAL EXTENSION 43 other large game swarmed here then, and there was no " channel " separating England from the Continent. We know a long succession of events which have occurred since then the arrival of the Reindeer-men, their dis- appearance, and the conversion of Europe into a pastoral and agricultural land by the men of the polished stone weapons, the arrival of the later bronze-using men, and later still the introduction of iron. Most " prehistorians " consider that much more than twenty thousand years has elapsed since the last great glacial period covered North and Central Europe with ice. Professor Penck, a very high authority, estimates four hundred thousand years as having passed since the first glacial extension of Pleistocene times. But it is not. possible in the present state of knowledge to hold with conviction to any exact estimate, nor to be quite sure that another glacial period is not already due ! The ice which forms by freezing on a lake or pond differs a good deal in appearance and structure from glacier ice. If a piece of lake or pond ice is melted in warm air, the surface gradually liquefies, and the whole remains clear. But if a piece of dense glacier ice from the deeper part of a glacier (such as you may get from one of the " ice-caves," often cut for show at the snout of a glacier) is similarly melted, very fine cracks appear in it, and gradually the lump breaks up into irregular crystalline pieces. They are called " glacier grains," and are usually about the size of a walnut, but may be smaller or bigger. They are separate groups of ice crystals, and the glacier ice is made up of these innumerable units tightly wedged and fused together. Their origin is not properly under- stood, but it appears (see p. 26) that the water which per- colates the freshly formed neve, and freezes so as to solidify the mass, has more mineral matter in solution than have the snow crystals themselves, and melts more easily (at a lower temperature). Hence the sun's rays liquefy this 44 GLACIERS cementing ice, and leave the purer crystals as knob-like glacier grains. I have already mentioned the stratified structure to be seen in the newer ice of a glacier, but there are also the dirt bands which form by the collection of rock debris in transverse fissures of the glacier, and are carried on and spread out as curved bands crossing the glacier from side to side when it has flowed some miles on its course and expanded in a broadened bed. A great deal of attention has been given to the question, " Why do glaciers descend ? " Though ice is not a viscous body, it yet has some of the properties of one when it presents itself in huge masses, such as are glaciers. It can bend and spread and alter its shape in response to pressure; it splits and reunites its broken surfaces owing to the property of " regelation " which I described above. In a warm atmosphere a cube of pitch, or of sealing-wax, or wax, as big as a quartern loaf, though solid and apparently keeping its shape, will, if placed on a sloping board, very slowly commence to flow down the slope, the process being so slow that it takes hours, or even days, to give any observable result. In virtue of its " sham " viscosity its power of cracking and healing incessantly by rege- lation a sufficiently large and weighty mass of ice behaves in the same way. But it appears that the size of the mass is a very important condition. You can make a small upright figure, say four inches high, in soft wax, which will hold together and keep its form, but if you make a similarly shaped figure of the same material, ten feet high, it will bend and bulge and droop as a paraffin candle does in hot weather. The same import- ance attaches to actual bulk, height, or depth of the mass in regard to the flow of glacier ice, though it seems that the conditions of its flow or movement are not even yet thoroughly understood. Professor Heim holds that the THE FLOW OF GLACIERS 45 weight of the ice is sufficient to account for its movement, and that a mass of lead corresponding to a glacier would in the same position move much as it does. The close fitting of the glacier to its bed, the fusion of tributary glaciers with a larger one, and the more rapid movement of the middle part of a glacier than of its sides (which are arrested and slowed down as is the water of a river by friction with the rocky sides of its bed) are due to the continual cracking and breaking with constant regelation of the ice at all points where it is strained or subject to tension. Regelation gives it, in the gross, the properties of a viscous body, such as pitch or soft sealing wax although ice is certainly, when small bits or crystals of it are examined, or even when we deal with a block of it weighing a ton not a viscous body capable of being extended, that is, elongated or widened in shape, by pulling. It is not capable of being drawn out into strings or threads as are viscous bodies like pitch, sealing-wax and thick treacle ! Under pressure, however, it does behave like a viscous body, and fragments or powder of ice can be squeezed in a mould into a solid coherent mass (as one can squeeze and fuse powdered wax or amber when warm), owing to its property of " regelation," that is to say, of partial thawing under pressure and immediate re-freezing when the pressure is relaxed. The thick, sticky " flows " or slowly moving streams of mud or watery clay, which one may see at the base of sea-side cliffs in many places, for instance, the Isle of Wight, are in important respects like small models of glaciers. One sees in them clearly enough that the middle part flows more quickly than the sides, and one sees the formation of crevasses by the " tearing " of the unequally moving mass. And the formation of what is called the veined structure of a glacier and of dirt bands on its surface are illustrated by similar 46 GLACIERS appearances caused by the cracking and squeezing of the mud flow. The squeezing to which glaciers are subject in their downward movement is often gigantic in amount. Glaciers from neighbouring rock valleys unite and form one slowly flowing river of ice without the breadth of the channel being proportionately increased. The glaciers which unite to form the great Gorner glacier above Zermatt have a width often miles, and soon after they have joined together the width is reduced to two miles, and farther on to one mile. The depth of the glacier is, of course, increased when its width is diminished. Swiss glaciers have been bored to a depth of 800 feet without reaching the bottom, and, small as they are compared with the great glaciers of the glacial age, it is calculated that they attain in places to a depth of 2000 feet. There is enough solid ice in the great Gorner glacier to build three cities the size of London ! There are about 1500 glaciers in Switzerland, some of which, of course, unite with one another as they descend, and the total area they cover is over 1000 square miles, with an average thickness difficult to estimate, but pro- bably not over-estimated at 250 feet. The colour of ice, like that of water, is blue, and of course the colour is deep and intense in proportion to the thickness of clear ice or water through which the light passes. There is a great deal of persistent error about the blue colour of water. A good many people insist that it is due to the reflected blue colour of the sky. It is easy to prove that this is not so since the clear water of seas and lakes is seen to be blue when the sky is completely overcast. When the water is not very deep and the bottom is white, the colour is a very fine turquoise blue. But if the water is of such great depth that no light is reflected up from the bottom through the water, then the colour is a deep indigo. If the water has any yellow stain THE COLOUR OF ICE 47 in it, from dead or living vegetable matter or from iron salts, the colour is green. There are two readily available exhibitions of the blue colour of water with which anyone may satisfy himself on the subject. The first is that of the tanks of some of the water-supplying companies, such as those to be seen from the railway near Caterham. These tanks are cube-like reservoirs, twenty feet deep. They are used to soften the water by precipitating the chalk dissolved in it, and the deposit of white chalk lines the bottom and sides of the tanks whilst the water itself becomes of crystalline purity. Even on the most cloudy days these tanks stand out in the scene as patches of brilliant cobalt blue. A simpler case is that of the large brilliantly white porcelain baths now provided in bath- rooms. If the room is well lit from above by strong sun- light, and has a white wall, and the bath is well filled with good clear water, the latter appears strongly blue, any wave or rippling of the surface appearing as bands of bright blue. In this case the light is reflected to and fro by the sides of the bath, and an effect like that of the blue grotto of Capri is obtained. If the water should appear at all green, it is due to yellow-coloured impurity in the water, or in the porcelain, or in the colouring of the sides of the room. Liquid oxygen (prepared by modern methods of pro- ducing extreme cold) is also blue. It is not surprising that solid water, which is what we look into in the great chasms in the clear ice of glaciers, should show this colour. Glaciers often, however, appear bluish-green, especially near the surface, or when seen indistinctly at a distance. This is due to fine dust from the atmosphere, which falls con- tinually on the mountain snow, and contains iron, which forms yellow-coloured rust in minute quantity. Some of the dust which falls on the snow of mountains and on the ocean (sinking there to the bottom) is of terrestrial 48 GLACIERS origin, brought by the wind from great distances ; but a great deal of it is dust (consisting of iron and other elements), which falls on the earth from interstellar space, and is called " meteoric dust." The particles are, in fact, minute " meteoric stones," or " falling stars," but so small and light that they do not become vapourised, or even red-hot, by friction with our atmosphere. They have been recognised in great quantity in the deposits on the floor of the great oceans, as well as on mountain snowfields, and it is estimated that a large number of tons of this " meteoric " material falls every year on to the surface of the earth, which must grow heavier in consequence. The water which is formed by the melting in summer of the surface of a glacier above, and at the sides and below, forms a stream, which runs beneath the glacier and issues below the " snout." The snout frequently has the shape of an arch overhanging a cave, from which the stream issues. The water which forms by the melting of the upper surface of the glacier forms streams, which often grow to some size before they plunge into a crack or fissure in the ice, and find their way to the rocky bed below. They often wear the ice into a well-like shaft, some hundreds of feet deep, and carry stones down with them from the surface, which, lying on the rock at the bottom, are violently rocked and driven about by the falling water. Remarkable basin-like holes are thus worn out in the rock-bed of the glacier, which sometimes come into view when the glacier recedes, and exposes the rock which it formerly covered, as in the " Glacier Garden " at Lucerne. They are called " giants' cauldrons," and the ice-well into which the surface-water rushes is called a " moulin," or glacier mill. By the retreat of a glacier we are able to see other results of its slow passage over the rocks, as, for instance, now at the lower end of the Mer de Glace of Chamonix. The ICE SCRATCHING AND ICE POLISHING 49 rock is smoothed and polished, and the projecting harder parts are not sharp and angular, but have the form of rounded humps, compared to a sheep's back, and hence called " roches vioutonneesr When we come within three or four feet of such rocks we see that they are marked in a peculiar way by straight scratches of all lengths from half an inch upwards, and crossing one another at various angles, though one direction that parallel to the valley predomi- nates. These scratches are caused by bits of harder stone which stick in the under surface' of the ice, like emery powder on a lapidary's metal plate. They move slowly along with the ice, and so scratch the rock. Separate stones of hand-size may be picked up which have been scratched in this way, and their appearance is very dis- tinctive. We know of no agency except that of moving ice by which loose stones and rocks can be made to scratch one another so as to give this special appearance. And accordingly, when we find such rocks in Wales and Scotland, and such stones in the " drift " and even below the Red Crag of Suffolk, we are led to the guess, which is con- firmed by a great mass of additional evidence, that glaciers or great masses of moving ice existed formerly on the mountains of Wales and the plains of East Anglia. Whilst the rocks which are covered, or were at one time covered, by the ice of a glacier are rounded, smoothed and scratched, the higher rocks which have never been submerged by the moving ice-mass stand out sharp and angular. They are continually broken and shattered by the action of frost, and shower down on to the glaciers their fragments, and sometimes immense masses of rock, which accumulate like a huge railway embankment at the sides of the glacier, or are slowly carried along by it as they rest on its surface (like a passenger on one of the new moving platforms or inclines), and so are deposited at the end when the glacier melts away. These heaps of 4 50 GLACIERS rock are called " moraines." Those at the sides of a glacier are called " lateral moraines," and the heap at the melting end or " snout " is a " terminal moraine." When two glaciers flow down neighbouring rock valleys which join in a common valley, as the two limbs of the letter Y join on the stem, the glaciers become pressed and fused together where they meet and form one glacier. The left lateral moraine of the right-hand valley (as you descend) joins the right lateral moraine of the left-hand valley, and the two form a " central moraine " on the mid- line of the slowly advancing combined mass of ice. The rock fragments on such a moraine are of all sizes, some as big as a small house, and piled up in some large glaciers to a breadth of a quarter of a mile. They give one a most vivid impression of the tremendous and incessant breaking down of the mountains. Often one may see such huge masses descend with a terrible roar from the heights above on to the glacier or an avalanche of smaller fragments amounting to hundreds of tons in weight, pouring down the precipitous rocks of the higher peaks. Sometimes when one looks from above on to the glacier a thousand or more feet below, the size of the rocky frag- ments of a central moraine is not appreciated. I once heard a newly arrived and inexperienced visitor at the Bel Alp exclaim as he looked down on to the great Aletch glacier, " I suppose they have spread those cinders on the ice to make a path for us to walk on along the glacier." He had no notion that what, at that distance, he took for a cinder-path, consisted of huge pieces of rock mostly of the size of an omnibus ! A matter which is now greatly discussed among geolo- gists and upon which different views are held, is as to the " grinding " or " excavating " action of glaciers upon the bed over which they slowly move. It is probable that their excavating activity has been exaggerated. They do EXCAVATION BY GLACIERS 51 not cut the first lines of a valley, but they constantly deepen the valleys along which they move. As to how much of this kind of excavation is due to the grinding action of the vast weight of slowly moving ice and how much is due to the huge and violent rushing torrent of water which always underlies the ice and is hemmed in at the sides of the valley by it, seems to be differently estimated by American, Swiss, and English geologists. CHAPTER V THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE T TNTIL instantaneous photography was introduced, a ^J little more than twenty-five years ago (by the dis- covery of the means of increasing the sensitiveness of a photographic plate), and gradually became familiar to everyone in the exhibitions known as the " biograph " or " cinematograph," the actual position of the legs in a galloping horse at any given fraction of a second was unknown. Anyone who has tried to " see " their position will agree that it cannot be done. Attempts had been made to make out what the movements and positions of the legs " must " be, by studying the hoof-marks in a soft track laid for the purpose. But the result was not satis- factory. As everyone knows, the so-called " biograph " pictures are produced by an enormous series of consecutive instantaneous photographs taken on a continuous trans- parent flexible film or ribbon. The camera has a mechanism attached to it by which the sensitive film is jerked along so as to expose a length of two inches (the size of the picture given by the camera) for, say, one thirtieth of a second without movement. The film is then jerked on and a second bit of two inches is brought into place for a thirtieth of a second and so on until a ribbon of some thousand pictures is obtained. The interval between each picture is usually also about one thirtieth of THE CINEMATOGRAPH 53 a second, so that at least fifteen pictures are taken in every second of time, and according to the requirements of illu- mination and the rapidity of the movements of the men or animals photographed this number may be greatly increased. The film is developed, printed and fixed on a similar rolling film and the pictures are thrown one by one by a powerful lantern on to a screen, and are jerked along at the same rate as that at which they were taken, and are magnified enormously. Animals and men in rapid move- ment, railway trains, the waves of the sea are thus photo- graphed, and when the serial pictures are thrown successively on the screen the result is that the eye detects no interval between the successive pictures the figures appear as continuous moving objects. This is due to the fact that whilst the impression produced on the retina of the eye by each picture lasts for a tenth of a second (less with brighter light), the interval between the successive pictures is only one thirtieth of a second, and accordingly the retinal impression has not gone or ceased before the next is there ; hence there is no break in the series of retinal impressions, but continuity.* It is this duration of the impression on the retina which prevents us from separating or "seeing distinctly" the successive phases of a horse's legs as he gallops by, and has led to the remarkable result that no artist has ever until twenty-five, years ago represented correctly any one phase of the movement of the legs in a galloping horse, and it is doubtful whether that correctness is what the painter of a picture really ought to put on his canvas. If we examine the separate pictures of a galloping horse as taken on a cinematograph film, we have before us the actual record of the positions assumed by the legs at intervals of the thirtieth of a second (or whatever less interval and length of exposure may have been chosen), * See note on page 75. 54 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE and it is simply astonishing to find how utterly diffe- rent they are from what had been supposed. Twenty years ago Mr. Muybridge produced a number of these instantaneous photographs of moving animals such as the horse in gallop, trot, canter, amble, walk, and jumping and bucking also the dog running, birds of several kinds flying, camel, elephant, deer, and other animals in rapid movement. The animals were photographed on a track in front of a wall, marked out to show measured yards ; the time was accurately recorded to show rate of move- ment and length of exposure, and of interval between successive pictures. By means of three cameras worked by electric shutter-openers, a side, a back, and a front view of the animal were taken simultaneously. Repeated photo- graphs were obtained at intervals of a fraction of a second, giving a series of fifteen or twenty pictures of the moving animal. The length of exposure for each picture was one fortieth of a second or less, and the interval between successive pictures was about the same. Muybridge's great difficulty had been to invent a shutter which would act rapidly enough. I have some of these pictures before me now (see PI. I). They show that what has been drawn by artists and called the " flying gallop," in which the legs are fully extended and all the feet are off the ground, with the hind hoofs turned upwards, never occurs at all in the gal- loping horse, nor anything in the least like it. There is a fraction of a second when all four legs of the galloping PLATE I. Figs, i to u, drawings from Muybridge's photographs of con- secutive poses of the galloping horse, each photograph taken by an exposure of one fortieth of a second and separated from the next by an interval of one fortieth of a second. The horse in Fig. 10 has returned to the same pose as that with which the series starts in Fig. i. Fig. ii gives a pose one hundredth of a second later in the series than that taken in Fig. 2. Fig. 12 shows a combination of the hinder half of Fig. 9 with the front half of Fig. 6, giving thus the maximum extension of boih fore and hind legs. PLATE I. 55 56 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE horse are off the ground, but they are not then extended, but, on the contrary, are drawn, the hind ones forward and the front ones backward, under the horse's belly (see PL I, figs. 2 and 3). A model showing this actual instantaneous attitude of the galloping horse has recently been placed in the Natural History Museum. When the hoofs touch the ground again after this instantaneous lifting and bending of the legs under the horse, the first to touch it is that of one of the hind legs (PL I, fig. 4), which is pushed very far forward, forming an acute angle with the body. The shock of the horse's impact on the ground is thus received by the hind leg, which reaches obliquely forward beneath the body like an elastic <-spring. Since the intantaneous photographs have become generally known artists have ceased to represent the galloping horse in the curious stretched pose which used to be familiar to everyone in Herring's racing plates (see PL II, fig. i), with both fore and hind legs nearly horizontal, and the flat surface of the hind hoofs actually turned upwards ! Indeed, as early as 1886 a French painter, M. Aime Morot, availed himself of the information afforded by the then quite novel instan- taneous photographs of the galloping horse, and exhibited a picture of the cavalry fight at Rezonville between the French and Germans, in which the old flying gallop does not appear, but the attitudes of the horses are those PLATE II. Various representations of the gallop. Fig. i. From Geri- cault's picture, "The Epsom Derby, 1821." Figs. 2 and 3. From gold-work on the handle of a Mycenaean dagger, 1800 B.C. Fig. 4. From iron-work found at Koban, east of the Black Sea, dating from 500 B.C. Fig. 5. From Muybridge's instantaneous photograph of a fox-terrier, showing the probable origin of the pose of the "flying gallop " transferred from the dog to other animals by the Mycenseans. Fig. 6. The stretched-leg prance from the Bayeux tapestry (eleventh century). Fig. 7. The stretched-leg prance used to represent the gallop by Carle Vernet in 1760. Fig. 8. The stretched-leg prance used by early Egyptian artists. 57 PLATE II. 58 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE revealed by the new photographs. The picture is an epoch-making one, whether justifiable or not, and is now in the gallery of the Luxembourg. It must be noted that though Meissonier and others had succeeded in represent- ing more truthfully than had been customary, other move- ments of the horse, such as " pacing," ambling, cantering, and trotting, yet in regard to them, also, more easily observed because less rapid, the instantaneous photograph served to correct erroneous conclusions. Two very interesting questions arise in connection with the discovery by instantaneous photography of the actual positions successively taken up by the legs of a galloping horse. The first is one of historical and psychological importance, viz. why and when did artists adopt the false but generally accepted attitude of the " flying gallop " ? The second is psychological and also physiological, viz. if we admit that the true instantaneous phases of the horse's gallop (or of any other very rapid movement of anything) can not be seen separately by the human eye, but can only be separated by instantaneous photography, ought an artist to introduce into a picture, which is not intended to serve merely as a scientific diagram, an appearance which has no actual existence so far as his or other human eyes PLATE III. Representations of the gallop. Fig. i. A combination of the hinder half of Fig. 10, PI. I, with the front half of Fig. 4, PI. I. Fig. 2. One of the many admirable Chinese representations of the galloping horse. This is very early, namely 100 A.D. The pose is that of the " flying gallop " as in Figs. 2, 4 and 5 of PI. II. Fig. 3. From a Japanese drawing of the seventeenth century ; the pose is a modification of the " flying gallop," and agrees closely with that of Fig. I in this plate. Fig. 4. The flex-legged prance from a bas-relief in the frieze of the Parthenon, B.C. 300. Fig. 5. A modern French drawing giving a pose very similar to that of Figs, i and 3. It is the most " effective " pose yet adopted by artists, and is an improvement on the full-stretched flying gallop, though failing to suggest the greatest effort and rapidity. Fig. 6. Instantaneous photographs of four phases of a horse "jumping." 59 PLATE III. Fig. 3. Japanese, 17^ Contury Fig. 4. Parthenon *y/ 1 1 > i > i\ \ v F.g.5 Conventional Gallop Fig 6 6o THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE are concerned, viz. that of the actual pose assumed instan- taneously and simultaneously by the four legs of the galloping horse ? And further, if he ought not to do this, what ought he to do, on the supposition that his purpose is to convey to others the same impression of rapid move- ment which exists not, be it observed, in his eye, or on the retina of that eye but in his mind, as the result of attention and judgment ? The first of these questions has been answered by the great French authority on archaeology and the history oi art, M. Salomon Reinach,^ whose writings are as lucid and terse as they are accurate, and solidly based on research. M. Reinach shows (and produces drawings to support his statement) that in Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, mediaeval, and modern art up to the end of the eighteenth century " the flying gallop " does not appear at all ! The first example (so far as those schools are concerned) is an engraving by G. T. Stubbs in 1794 of a horse called " Baronet." The essential points about "the flying gallop " are that the fore-limbs are fully stretched forward, the hind limbs fully stretched backward, and that the flat surfaces of the hinder hoofs are facing upwards. After this engraving of 1794 the attitude introduced by Stubbs became generally adopted in English art to represent a galloping horse, and the French painter, Gericault, intro- duced it into France in 1821 in his celebrated picture, the "Derby d'Epsom," (see PL II, fig. i) which is now in the Louvre. Previously to this there had been three other con- ventional poses for the running horse in art, of which only the third (to be mentioned below) has any resemblance to a real pose, and that not one of rapid movement. We find: (i) The enlongated or stretched-leg "prance" (French, * " La Representation du Galop dans 1'art ancien et moderne," ' Revue Archeologique,' vol. xxxvi et seq., 1900. ANCIENT REPRESENTATIONS OF GALLOP 61 " cabrt allonge"}, in which, whilst the front legs are off the ground, and all four legs are stretched nearly as much as in the flying gallop, there is this essential difference, viz. that the hoofs of the hind legs are firmly planted on the ground (see PL II, fig. 7). This pose is seen in a picture by the same artist (Stubbs) of two years' earlier date than that in which he introduced " the flying gallop." The "stretched-leg prance" is found in Egyptian works (PL II, fig. 8) of 580 B.C., and is a favourite pose to indicate the gallop, in ancient Assyrian as well as mediaeval art, for instance, in the Bayeux tapestry (PL VI, fig. 6). We find, further, (2) that the second pose made use of for this purpose is the " flexed-leg prance," in which all the four legs are flexed, so that the hind legs rest on the ground beneath the horse's body, whilst the fore-legs " paw " the air. This .is seen both in Egyptian, Greek, and Renaissance art (Leonardo, Raphael, and Velasquez). It is by no means so graceful or true to Nature as the next pose, but gives an impression of greater energy and rapidity. The third pose regresents a kind of " prancing," and is seen on the frieze of the Parthenon (PL III, fig. 4), and in many subsequent Greek, Roman, and other works copied from, or inspired by, this Greek original. One only of the hind legs is on the ground, and the animal's body is thrown up as though its advance were checked by the rein. It is called "the canter" by M. Reinach, but that term can only be applied to it when the axis of the body is hori- zontal and parallel to the surface of the ground. The reader will perhaps now suppose that we must attribute the " flying gallop " to the original, if inaccurate, genius of an eighteenth century English horse-painter, That, however, is not the case. M. Reinach has shown that it has a much more extraordinary history. It is neither more nor less than the fact that in the pre-Homeric art of Greece that which is called " Mycenaean " (of which 62 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE so much was made known by the discoveries of that wonderful man Schliemann when he dug up the citadel of Agamemnon) the figures of animals, horses, deer, bulls (see the beautiful gold cups of Vaphio), dogs, lions, and griffins, in the exact conventional pose of " the flying gallop," are quite abundant ! (See PI. II, figs. 2, 3, and 4.) There was an absolute break in the tradition of art between the early gold-workers of Mykene (i 800 to 1000 B.C.) and the Greeks of Homer's time (800 B.C.). Europe never re- ceived it, nor did the Assyrians nor the Egyptians. Thirty centuries and more separate the reappearance in Europe of the flying gallop through Stubbs from the only other European examples of it the Mycenaean. What, then, had become of it, and how did it come to England ? M. Reinach shows, by actual specimens of art-work, that the Mycenaean art tradition, and with it the "flying gallop," passed slowly through Asia Minor north-eastwards to the Trans-caucasus (Koban 500 B.C.), to Northern Persia, and thence by Southern Siberia to the Chinese Empire (PL III, fig. 2) as early as 150 B.C., and that the "flying gallop," so to speak, " flourished " there for centuries, and was trans- mitted by the Chinese artists to the Japanese, in whose drawings it is frequent (PI. Ill, fig. 3). It was at last finally brought back to Europe, and to the extreme west of it, namely, England, by the importation in the eighteenth century into England of large numbers of Japanese works of art. It was a Japanese drawing (M. Reinach infers) which suggested to Stubbs the upturned hinder hoofs and the detachment from the ground of " the flying gallop " which he gave in his portrait of " Baronet," and so esta lished that pose for a century in modern European ar This is a delightful tracing out of the wanderings of a artistic " convention," and the curious thing is that it chief importance is not that it has to do with the move- ments of the horse, but that it tends (as do other dis- )" \ THE DOG IN MYCENAEAN ART 63 coveries) to establish the gradual passage of pre-classical Mycenaean art across Central Asia to China and Japan by trade routes and human migrations which had no touch with later Greece nor with Assyria nor India. How did the Mycenaeans come to invent, or at any rate adopt, the convention of " the flying gallop," seeing that it does not truly represent either the fact or the appearance of a galloping horse? Though 20,000 years ago the earliest of all known artists, the wonderful cave-men of the Reindeer period, drew bison, boars, and deer in rapid running movement with consummate skill, they were (be it said to their credit !) innocent of the conventional pose of the " flying gallop." I base this statement on my own knowledge of their work. M. Reinach thinks that the " flying gallop " was devised as an intentional expression of energy in movement. I venture to hold the opinion that it was observed by the Mycenaeans in the dog, in which Muybridge's photographs (now before me) demon- strate that it occurs regularly as an attitude of that animal's quickest pace or gallop (see fig. 5, PL II). It is easy to see the " flying gallop " in the case of the dog, since the dog does not travel so fast as the galloping horse, and can be more readily brought under accurate vision on account of its smaller size. The late Professor Marey (a great investigator of animal movement) appears to have denied that the dog exhibits the full stretch of both limbs with the pads of the hind-feet upturned, and all the feet free from the ground. He was mistaken, as Muybridge's photograph giving side and back view of a galloping fox- terrier amply demonstrates. It is quite in accordance with probability that the early Mycenaean artists, having seen how the dog gallops, erroneously proceeded to put the galloping horse, and all other animals which they wished " to make gallop," into the same position. It appears, then, that the poses used by artists at 64 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE different times and in different parts of the world to repre- sent the " galloping " of the horse have no correspon- dence to any of the poses actually assumed by a galloping horse as now demonstrated by instantaneous photography. The " prancing " attitude of the horses of the frieze of the Parthenon was probably not intended to represent rapid movement at all. The " stretched leg " pose and the " flexed leg " pose are, as a matter of fact, phases of " the jump," and are definitely recorded in Muybridge's instan- taneous photographs of the jumping horse, but have no existence in " galloping " nor in any rapid running of the horse. They were probably adopted by the artists of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and their successors in Europe as an expedient without conviction, to represent rapid move- ment, the true poses of which defied satisfactory reproduc- tion. And it is also the fact that the " flying gallop," which appeared in Mycenaean art thirty-seven centuries ago, and then travelled by a " Scythian " route through Tartary to China, and came back to Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, is also so far as it has any real representative in the action of the horse only approached by a brief phase of the " jump." The poses of the horse in jumping are shown in the small figures taken from instantaneous photographs and reproduced in fig. 6 of PL III. The fine engraving from the Duke of Newcastle's book, published in 1667, which is reproduced in PL IV, is not an attempt to represent a horse galloping, but a correct drawing of a horse " taking off" for a jump as seen in the uppermost horse in PL III, fig. 6. The picture given by the Duke is 250 years old, but it is not an anticipation of Stubbs' flying gallop, although the hind legs are repre- sented with the hoofs turned upwards. It intentionally represents (according to the text of the treatise in which it was first published) a jump, not a gallop. The "flying gallop " (" venire a terre "), with all four legs stretched, and PLATE IV. Reproduction from Mr. Theodore A. Cook's book, ' A History of the English Turf,' published by Virtue and Co., of an engraving in the Duke of Newcastle's book, dated 1667, with the title, ' A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses and Work them according to Nature.' The horse in this picture is represented with the hoofs of the hind-legs up-turned as in the pose of the flying gallop introduced by Stubbs a hundred and twenty years later. The horse is, however, in this picture not supposed to be " galloping," but is "jumping," and in that action, as shown in PI. Ill, fig. 6, the legs and hoofs do actually assume the position shown in this admirable engraving. WHAT OUGHT AN ARTIST TO DO? 65 the under surface of the hind feet upturned, is really seen by us all every day in the dog, and is recorded in instan- taneous photographs of that animal going at full speed. In fact, the gallop of the dog (and of some other small animals) is a series of jumps ; the animal " bounds along." But this is a totally different thing from the gallop of the horse. It is probable that the dog's gallop was trans- ferred, so to speak, to the horse by artists, and a certain justification for it was found in one of the attitudes of a jumping horse, which, however, never exhibits both the front and the hind legs simultaneously in so completely horizontal a position as they are made to take in the Mycenaean gold-work and the modern " racing plates." How, then, we may now ask, ought an artist to repre- sent a galloping horse ? Some critics say that he ought not to represent anything in such rapid action at all. But, putting that opinion aside, it is an interesting question as to what a painter should depict on his canvas in order to convey to others who look at it the state of mind, of impression, feeling, emotion, judgment, which a live, gallop- ing horse produces in him. The scientific draughtsman would, of course, present to us a series of drawings exactly like the instantaneous photographs, his object being to show what " is," and not what the artist aims at, namely, what " appears," " seems," or (without pondering and analysis) " is thought to be." The painter, in his quality of artist, would be wrong to select any one of the dozen or more poses of the galloping horse published by Muybridge, each limited to the fortieth of a second, since no human eye can fix (as the photographic camera can) separate pictures following one another at the rate of twenty a second, each enduring one fortieth of a second, and each separated by an interval of a fortieth of a second from the next. All the phases which occur in any one-tenth of a second (only two, or possibly three of the Muybridge series shown in PI. I) are 5 66 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE as it were, fused in our visual impression, because each picture lasts on the retina of the eye for one tenth of a second, or (to put it more accurately) because the " im- pression " or condition of the retina produced by each picture persists or endures for the tenth of a second. It may, perhaps, be suggested (and, indeed, has been), that it is the " blurred " or " fused " picture produced by the successive poses of the galloping horse's legs in one tenth of a second that the painter ought to imitate on his canvas. In support of this notion we have the fact that the rapidly running wheels of a coach or of a gun-carriage (as in the pictures by Wouwerman) are represented by artists, not with the twelve or fourteen spokes which we know to be there and would be photographed as separate things in an exposure of the fortieth of a second but as a blurred haze of some fifty or more indistinct " spokes." In this case it undoubtedly results that the observer of the picture is satisfied and receives the mental impression or illusion of a rapid rotation of the wheel. I have tried the experiment with instantaneous photographs of the galloping horse, and I get three results : first, no combination of successive phases occupying one tenth of a second gives anything resembling the " flying gallop " of the racing plates (the Mycenaean and Stubbsian pose), or any other conventional pose ; second, no combination of successive instantaneous photographs limited to ten seconds gives any pose which satisfies the judgment and suggests a movement like the gallop ; third, the combina- tion which comes nearest to satisfying the judgment as being a natural appearance, but does not quite succeed in doing so, is one formed by the fusion of figs. 2 and 3 of PI. I. This gives all four legs off the ground, drawn up or flexed beneath the horse's body, as in Morot's picture of the sabre-charge at Resonville. The fact is that we have to take into consideration two ATTENTION AS A CONDITION OF SEEING 67 other factors in the process, which we call " seeing," besides the duration of the retinal impression or excitation. These are, first, attention, and second, judgment. We are apt to think that " seeing " is a simple, straightforward sort of thing, whereas it is really a strangely complex and delusive process. " I did not see it, therefore it was not there," or " You must have seen it ; it was right in front of you," are common assertions, and the belief that such assertions are justified leads to miscarriage of justice in courts of law. Yet everyone knows that he may stare out of the window of a railway carriage and have a long panorama pass before his eyes, or may walk along a crowded street and look his acquaintances in the face, and in neither case will he have " seen " or recognised anything, or be able to give an account of the scene that was pictured on the back of his eye. Attention, the direction of the mind to the sensation, is necessary ; and it appears that it is very difficult (to some more than to others) to hold the attention alert, and to give it to the unexpected. In fact, to a very large extent we can only " see " (using the word to signify the ultimate mental condition) that which we are prepared to see or that which we expect to see. In the absence of such expectation, a very strongly illuminated or well- marked, outstanding object is far more readily " seen " than less marked objects. Accordingly, the outstretched legs of the galloping horse, now in front and now behind, are " seen," whilst the rest of the phases are not observed. Moreover, it is a fact that the swinging pendulum of a clock is " seen " at the extreme position of the swing an each side, and not in the intermediate sp ace. This is because the image is formed very quickly, twice in the space where the bob of the pendulum is coming to the limit of its swing and is again returning on its course. For the same reason, the outstretched legs of the horse going up to their limit and at once returning give in very 68 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE quick succession, near their extreme limit, an ascending and a descending phase which are not strictly but sensibly alike, and so doubly impress the retina, and obtain for the legs " attention " when in that extreme position. The choice of the attitude depicted by Morot is explained by the fact that, as is shown by its persistence through two successive pictures (figs. 2 and 3 of PL I), this pose must produce a more continuous impression on the retina than any other of the attitudes shown, since none of them endure through two successive pictures. The mental process of attention results in a certain duration or memory of the mental condition which is a distinct thing from the primary retinal impression, and leads to the ignoring or mental obliteration of an instan- taneous interval separating two phases of the position of moving legs which have strongly " arrested the attention." Hence, it seems that the most forward pose of the galloping horse's front legs and the most backward pose of its hind legs though far from simultaneous, even in the slow changing retinal impressions may be mentally combined by " the arrest of attention," and that the artist really ought to present his picture of the galloping horse with those two poses combined (although as a matter of scientific truth they do not occur simultaneously) in order that he may produce by his painted piece of canvas, as nearly as he can, the mental result which we call " seeing " a horse gallop. This combination of the front half of one figure with the hinder half of another so as to give in each case the extreme phase of extension of the legs I have made in PL I, fig. 12. But there is, further, in all " seeing " before even a mental result of attention to the retinal picture is, as it were, " passed," admitted and registered as " a thing seen," the further operation of rapid criticism or judgment, brief though it be. We are always unconsciously forming JUDGMENT AND PREJUDICE 69 lightning-like judgments by the use of our eyes, rejecting the improbable, and (as we consider) preposterous, and accepting and therefore " seeing " what our judgment approves even when it is not there ! We accept as " a thing seen " a wheel buzzing round with something like fifty spokes but we cannot accept a horse with eight or sixteen legs ! The four- legged ness of a horse is too dominant a prejudice for us to accept a horse with several indistinct blurred legs as representing what we see when the horse. gallops. The mind revolts at such a presenta- tion, though it is true, and the whole scheme and composi- tion of the artist is perverted or fails to gain attention and to exercise its charm by the unwelcome presence in his picture of the revolting truth. It is the consideration of facts of this kind which enables us to understand the origin and importance of what are called " conventions " in pictorial or glyptic art. The artist is, in fact, operating by means of his painted canvas or moulded clay upon a queer, prejudiced, ill-seeing, dull, living creature his brother-man. In order to give if possible to that brother, by means of a painted sheet, some or all of the delights, emotions, suggestions, perceptions of beauty, and so on, which he himself has experienced in contemplating a real scene, the artist has to present that scene, not as it really is, nor even as he thinks it really is, but in such a way that his canvas shall appeal to his brother's attention and judgment with the same emotional and intellectual result as the scene itself produced in him. Therefore he must not aim at accuracy of reproduction of natural fact nor even of visual fact, but at the transference to another mind of his own mental condition his inner judgment as to " things seen "- by means of necessarily imperfect pictorial mimicry. He must therefore avoid startling or abnormal truthfulness of observation of the unessential, and even more strictly must he refuse to make his picture a scientific 70 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE diagram demonstrating what " is " rather than what is "seen" or is "thought to have been seen." On these grounds I find that the most satisfactory pictures of the galloping horse are those which combine a phase of the movement of the front legs with a phase of the movement of the hind legs, not simultaneous in actual occurrence, but following one another. It is for the artist to select the combination best suited to producing the mental result aimed at. Some of the Chinese and Japanese representations of the galloping horse and some of their European imitations (but not all certainly not that of Stubbs, of the Epsom Derby of Gericault, and the racing plates) seem to me to be eminently satisfactory and successful in this respect. In the pictures to which I allude (PL III, figs. 3 and 5) all the legs are off the ground ; the front legs are advanced, but one or both may be more or less flexed, whilst the hind legs, though directed backwards with upturned hoofs, are not nearly horizontal (as they actually are in the galloping dog), but show the moderate extension which really occurs in the horse, and is recorded by instantaneous photography. This pose, favoured by many European and Japanese artists, can be obtained by uniting the outstretched hind legs of fig. 9 of the Muybridge series (PL I), with the outstretched forelegs of fig. 6, as shown in PL I, fig. I 2, or by uniting the hind legs of fig. 10 with the forelegs of fig. 4 as shown in PL III, fig. I. With regard to the representation of other " gaits " of the horse than that of the rapid gallop such as canter, trot, amble, rack, and walk I have no doubt that instan- taneous photography can (and in practice does) furnish the painter with perfectly correct and at the same time useful and satisfactory poses of the horse's limbs. These, though of longer duration than the poses of the gallop, can only be correctly estimated by the eye with great NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL PAGES 71 difficulty, and only sketched by artists of exceptional skill and patience. The movement of the wings of birds in flight has been very successfully analysed by instan- taneous photography. Some of the poses revealed must familiarise the public with what can be, and, in fact, has been, observed in the case of large sea-birds, by the unassisted eye, and has been represented in pictures by the more careful observers of nature among modern painters. A large sea-bird sailing along with apparently motionless wings has been photographed in the act of giving a single stroke so rapid as to escape observation by the eye. An interesting question in regard to the movements of the horse is that as to how far any known " pace " is natural to that animal, and how far it has been acquired by training and is, in a sense, artificial. We know so little of the wild horse, and of the more abundant wild asses and zebras, that it is difficult to say anything precise on this question. There is only one region in which the true original wild horse of the northern part of Asia and Europe still exists. That is the Gobi Desert, in Central Asia. This horse is known as Prevalsky's wild horse, in honour of the Russian traveller who discovered it. Live specimens are now to be seen in the Zoological Gardens and elsewhere. It closely resembles the drawings of horses made by the palaeolithic Cromagnard cave-men. A century ago a wild horse, probably of the same race as this, inhabited the Kirghiz Steppes, and was known as the Tarpan ; it is now extinct. The more southern Arabian horse is not known in the wild state, whilst the wild horses of America are descendants of domesticated European horses which have "run wild." I do not know of any studies of the move- ments of the true wild horse, nor of those of wild asses and zebras, carried out by the aid of instantaneous photography. It would be interesting to know whether untaught wild " equines " would fall naturally into the gaits known as " the 72 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE amble " and " the rack," or whether the walk, the trot, and the gallop are their only natural gaits. The amble, in which the fore and hind leg on the same side are advanced simultaneously, is a natural gait of the elephant, the fastest Muybridge could get from that great beast. He made a menagerie elephant amble at the rate of a mile in seven minutes. The only other animal known to habitually exhibit " the amble " is the giraffe. It is often exhibited by the giraffes in the Zoological Gardens in London, but has not, I believe, been recorded by a series of instantaneous photographs. When going at full speed over the grass wilds of Central Africa the giraffe exhibits a gait more like the galloping of deer and antelopes, and carries the long neck horizontally. No complete study of the " gaits " of large animals other than the horse has been made, since menagerie specimens and menagerie conditions are not satisfactory for the purpose, and, unfortunately, it has not been possible as yet to take series of photographs of them in their wild conditions. The electric spark furnishes a most important means of taking instantaneous photographs, but the operator must perform in the dark. An electric spark can be obtained which lasts only the one two-thousandth of a second, and by its use as the sole illuminating agent we can get a photograph of a phase of movement lasting only that excessively short space of time, or, if we please, a succession of such phases by using a succession of sparks. Thus, a rifle bullet is readily photographed while in flight with scarcely perceptible distortion. A wheel revolving many hundred times a second can thus be photographed, and appears to be stationary. Dr. Schillings has applied this method to the photography of wild animals by night in the forests of tropical Africa, and has published an interesting book giving his photographic results. In order to take these pictures the track followed by certain animals PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELECTRIC SPARK 73 has to be detected, and then a thread is stretched " breast- high " across the track, so that the animal coming along it by night shall pull the thread. Immediately the thread is pulled it sets an electric contact in action. There is a brief flash of one two-thousandth of a second, and a picture is taken by a camera previously fixed, out of harm's way, so as to focus the area where the thread was stretched. Dr. Schillings obtained some very remarkable photo- graphs of " the night life of the forest " in this way lions and leopards advancing on their prey were suddenly revealed, and the helpless antelope or other victim was shown crouching in the dark, or making a desperate effort to escape. The electric-spark method was applied by a friend of mine to demonstrate the movements by which a kitten falling backwards from a table succeeds in turning itself so. as to alight on its feet. During a fall of less than 3 ft. he obtained five successive spark-pictures of the kitten, which, I beg it may be clearly understood, was a pet kitten, and was neither frightened nor hurt by the proceedings. Instantaneous photographs, whether obtained by the use of an electric spark as a means of illumination, or by the less rapid method of a spring shutter working in combination with a sensitive film, which is jerked along so as to be exposed when the shutter is open and travel when it is shut, has been applied to the analysis of other movements than those I have mentioned, and has yet to be applied to many more, such as the crawling of insects and millipedes, and the beautiful rippling move- ment of the legs and body by which many marine worms swim. It has been extensively used in the study of human locomotion, and of the successive poses of the arms and legs in various athletic exercises, and in such games as baseball and golf. A first-rate fencer of my acquaintance had a five- 74 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE minutes' film of himself taken when fencing, giving 10,000 consecutive poses. He wished to see exactly what movements he made, and to ascertain by this minute examination any error or want of grace in his action, in order to avoid it. An unexpected picture is obtained when a man or woman is thus " biographed " whilst walking rapidly, and suddenly turns to the right or left. A fraction of a second occurs when the toes of the two feet are directed towards one another (that is to say, are " turned in "), as one of the legs swings round in the break-off to right or left. This instantaneous phase is very awkward and ugly in appearance. It is never pictured by artists, although regularly occurring, and seems to have been as little known before instantaneous photography was introduced as were most of the phases of the horse's gallop. The positions assumed when in the air by a high-jump athlete are almost incredible as revealed by the camera. He appears to be sitting in a most uncom- fortable way on the rope over which he is projecting himself. A very fine attitude is fixed for the artist in one of Muy bridge's instantaneous series of the " bowler " the cricket " bowler." The up-lifted right arm, the curve out- wards of the whole figure on the right side, and the free hang of the right leg make a most effective pose for a sculptor to reproduce. Among the most remarkable results obtained in Muybridge's series are the stages of the growth or development of strong " expression " in the face. The anxiety in the face of the baseball batsman as he awaits the ball is painful ; as he hits at the ball his expression is one of savage ferocity, and in a fraction of a second this gives place to a dawning smile, which as we pass along two or three later " instantanees " develops into a broad grin of satisfaction. Another genuine study of expression both of face and gesture and movement is given in the series where a pailful of cold water is unexpectedly poured USE OF INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHS 75 over the back of a bather seated in a sitz bath astonish- ment, dismay, anger, eagerness to escape, and the reaction to shock are all clearly shown. Darwin's studies on " the expression of the emotions " would have been greatly assisted by such analysis, and the subject might even now be developed by the use of serial instantaneous records obtained by photography. It may be useful to those interested in this subject to know that copies of Muybridge's large series of instantaneous photographs* of animal and human subjects in movement are preserved both in the library of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and in the Radcliffe Library at Oxford. I may also mention the extremely valuable series of instantaneous photographs of living bacteria, blood-parasites and infusoria produced by MM. Pathe, and the series of fishes and various invertebrates (including the curious caterpillar-like Peripatus) taken by Mr. Martin Duncan. The representation of the moon in pictures of the ordinary size (some three feet long by two in height) is a case in which the artist habitually one may almost say * A word is needed in amplification of what was said on p. 53 as to the blending of successive images produced on the retina of the eye by the bioscope or cinematograph or by the old " wheel of life." The point which is of importance is not the length of time during which the stimula- tion of the retina caused by an image endures becoming weaker and weaker as fractions of a second pass but it is this : How long will a stimulus last in undiminished brightness ? How soon must it be followed by another stimulus (another image) so that there may be fusion or con- tinuity, the one succeeding the other before the earlier has had time, not to disappear, but to decline. If it has had time to decline in intensity, the appearance of flickering results. That is what the cinematographer has to avoid. It is found that a quicker succession a shorter interval is neces- sary with strong light than with weaker light in order to produce continuity. With a faint light the interval may be as great as one-tenth of a second ; with a strong light it must not exceed one-thirtieth (or with still stronger light, one-sixtieth) of a second. With the stronger light there is a more rapid and a greater loss of the initial intensity of the impression or effect of stimulus, and though each successive effect remains as long, or longer, in dwindling intensity, you get want of continuity, or " flicker." 76 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE invariably departs greatly from scientific truth, and it is a question as to whether he is justified in what he does. Take first the case of the low-lying moon near the horizon as contrasted with the high moon. Everyone knows that the moon (and the sun* also) appears to be much bigger when it is low than when it is high. Everyone who has not looked into the matter closely is prepared to maintain that the luminous disc in the sky whether of moon or of sun not merely seems to, but actually does, occupy a bigger space when it is low down near the horizon than when it is high up, more nearly overhead. Of course, no one nowadays imagines that the moon or the sun swells as it sinks or diminishes in volume as it rises. Those who think about it at all, say that the greater length of atmosphere through which one sees the low sun or moon, as compared with the high, magnifies the disc as a lens might do. This, however, is not the case. If we take a photograph of the moon when low and another with the same instrument and the same focus when it is high, * What we may call " the visual size " of the sun happens to be owing to its far greater size and its far greater distance from us very nearly the same as that of the moon and is subject to the same numerical law of apparent diameter, viz. a disc of anv given measurement in diameter will cover it exactly when held at a distance from the eye which is 115 times that measurement. PLATE V. The track of the rising moon registered by continuous exposure of a photographic plate. It is given here in order to show that the dia- meter of the visible disc of the moon does not diminish as it rises. The slight increase in the breadth of the track registered by the moon's disc is probably due to a little distortion caused by the side portion of the lens. After M. Flammarion. The actual width of the moon's disc as printed here is a little over one eighth of an inch, which, if we regard it as " a picture" and not merely as a mechanical record, implies that the observer's eye is only about 143 inches distant from the picture plane instead of the more usual 18 inches, which corresponds to a diameter of the pictured moon's disc of between -th and -2th of an inch ('156 inch). 77 PLATE V. 78 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE we find that the celestial disc produces on the plate (as it does on our eyes) a picture-disc of practically the same size in both positions. In fact the high moon or sun pro- duces a picture-disc of a little larger size than the low moon or sun. I have here reproduced (PL V) a photo- graph, published by M. Flammarion, in which the moon has been allowed to print itself on a photographic plate exposed during the time the moon was rising, and it is seen that the track of the moon has not diminished in width as it rose higher and higher. No one will readily believe this ; yet it is a demonstrable fact. Astronomers have made accurate measurements which show that there is no diminution of the disc under these circumstances, but a slight increase since the moon is a very little nearer to us when overhead than when we see it across the horizon. If we put a piece of glass coated with a thin layer of water-colour paint into a frame, and then make a peep- hole in a board which we fix upright between us and the upright piece of framed glass, we can keep the framed glass steady (let us suppose it to be part of the window of a room), and then we can move the peep-hole board back from it into the room to measured distances. At a distance of one and a half feet from the framed glass, which is that at which an artist usually has his eye from his canvas or paper, we can trace on the smeared or tinted piece of glass the outlines of things seen through it exactly as they fill up the area of the glass men, houses, trees, the moon. The moon's disc (and the same is true of the sun) is found always to occupy a space on the glass which is T y^th of the distance of the eye from the framed glass plate. When the eye-to-frame distance is eighteen inches, the diameter of the disc of the moon on the smeared glass will occupy exactly TT5~ tn f eighteen inches, which is between one sixth and one seventh of an inch. Similarly if the peep-hole is at nine and a half feet or 1 1 4 inches from the framed glass ERRORS AS TO THE SIZE OF THE MOON 79 (which stands for us as the equivalent of an artist's picture) the moon will occupy almost exactly one inch in diameter the size of a halfpenny. With such a simple apparatus of peep-hole and smeared glass in an upright frame, it is easy to mark off the size covered by the moon (or sun), whether low or high, on the smeared glass, and it is found never to vary whether high or low so long as the same " eye-to-frame " or " peep-hole " distance is preserved. That seems to be an important fact for painters of sun- sets and moon-rises. But what do they do ? They never give the right size (namely one sixth of an inch) which corresponds to an eye-to-frame distance of eighteen inches. They give to a high moon, if they are very careful, a quarter of an inch for diameter. This means that the observer is about two and a half feet, or thirty inches from the picture nearly twice what the artist's eye really is as he paints. And then if painting a moon-rise or sunset they suddenly pretend to go to a distance of nine and a half feet from the picture and make the moon an inch across because it is low down, or even give the moon two inches in diameter, which would mean that they (and those who look at the picture when hung up for view) are observing at nineteen feet distance from the front plane or frame of the picture. They do not alter the other features in the picture to suit this change of distance of the eye from the frame and there is no warning given. Certainly there is no obvious and necessary reason for treating a picture containing a high moon as though you were three feet from the front plane of the scene presented, and a low moon as though you were twenty feet from that plane ! The confusion which may result in the representation of other objects when these changes of eye-to-frame distance are made is shown by the following simple facts. According to the simple laws of perspective, if the eye is at thirty inches from the picture-plane or frame (as declared by a 8o THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE moon drawn of a little more than a quarter of an inch broad), a post or a man six feet high drawn on the canvas as three inches high absolutely and definitely means that that man or post is sixty feet away from the observer inside the picture. The height of the represented object is the same fraction of the real object as the eye-to-frame distance is of the distance of the observer to the real object. If by a two-inch moon the artist has thrown you back from the front plane of the scene to a distance of nineteen feet, then the six-foot post or man drawn as three inches high definitely asserts that it or he is 456 feet distant within the picture. So, too, if the church tower which cuts the moon is really sixty feet high and is drawn of two inches vertical measure in the picture, it is an assertion when the moon is represented one quarter of an inch broad that the church tower is 290 yards, or a sixth of a mile distant. If, on the other hand, other things remaining the same, the moon is drawn two inches in diameter, the church tower is now asserted to be eight times as far off, or about a mile and a third. Very generally these facts are not considered by painters. They represent the low moon (or sun) big because the erroneous mental impression is common to all of us that it is big that is, bigger, much bigger, than the high moon or sun, and they do not follow out the consequences in perspective of the pictorial increase of the moon's apparent diameter. If we could ascertain why it is that the low moon pro- duces a false impression of being bigger as a mere disc in the scene than does the high moon, we might be able to discover how an artist could produce, as Nature does, an impression or belief in its greater size whilst keeping it all the time to its proper size. The explanation of the illusion as to the increased size of the sun's or moon's disc when low, given by M. Flammarion and other astronomers, is that the low sun or moon is unconsciously judged by us THE PAINTER AND THE MOON Si as an object at a greater distance than the high moon or sun. This is due to the long vista of arching clouds above and of stretching landscape or sea below when the sun or moon is looked at as it appears on or near the horizon. The illusion is aided by the dulness of the low moon and the brightness (supposed nearness) of the high moon. Being judged of (unconsciously) as further off than the high moon, the low moon is estimated as of larger size although of the same size. This is, I believe, the correct explanation of the illusion. When one gazes upwards to the sky, a small insect slowly flying across the line of sight sometimes is "judged of" as a huge bird an eagle or a vulture since we refer it to a distance at which birds fly and not to the shorter distance to which insects approach us. It seems that it would be possible for the painter, by carefully studying actual natural facts and introducing their presentation into his picture, to produce the impression of greater distance, and therefore of size, into a quarter-inch moon placed near the horizon. He is not compelled for want of other means to " cut the difficulty " and paint a falsely inflated moon which shall brutally and by measurement call up the illusion of increased size. I repro- duce here (Plate VI) an interesting drawing which shows how such illusions of size can be produced. It is none the worse for my purpose because it is an advertisement by the well-known firm who have kindly lent it to me. The three figures represented in black are all of the same height, yet the furthest one appears to be much taller and bigger alto- gether than the middle one, and the middle one than the nearest. This result is obtained by suggesting distance as separating the right-hand figure from us, whilst giving it exactly the same height as the others. This seems to me to be a simple case of an illusion of increased size produced by a suggestion of increased distance when all the time there is equality in size as in the case of the moon on the horizon 6 PLATE VI. THE MOON ON THE STAGE 83 compared with the moon overhead. It would be interest- ing to see an attempt on the part of a competent painter to produce in this way (which is, I believe, Nature's way) the illusion of increased size in a low-lying moon without really increasing the visual size of his painted moon as compared with one in another picture (to be painted by him) representing the moon bright, clear and small, overhead. The theatrical scene-painter has another kind of diffi- culty with the low moon and the setting sun. He can never be right for more than one row of seats one dis- tance in the theatre. Here there is no peep-hole, no frame or picture-plane. The observer is in the picture. If the moon is represented by an illuminated disc one foot in diameter, it will, when looked at at a distance of 1 1 5 feet, have the same visual size as the moon itself, but if your seat is nearer the scene it will look too large, if further off it will look too small. There is no getting over this diffi- culty, as the standard of actual Nature is set up on the stage by the men and women appearing on it at a known distance. It used to be asked in classical times by ingenious puzzle-makers " What is the size of the moon?" A true answer to that question would be " that of a plate a foot in diameter seen at a distance of a hundred and fifteen feet." Plate VI. Drawing of three figures Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Asquith showing how an illusion of size maybe produced in a picture. The figure of Mr. Asquith is of the same actual vertical measurement as that of Lord Lansdowne, viz. two inches and one eighth. Yet owing to the position in which the three figures are placed and the converging lines suggesting perspective the drawing of Mr. Asquith does not merely represent a much taller man than does that of Lord Lansdowne, but actually gives the impression, at first sight, that the little black figure representing Mr. Asquith is longer and bigger altogether than that representing Lord Lansdowne. Yet the figures are of the same dimensions. It is owing to illusion of the same nature that the disc of the low moon appears larger than that of the high moon. 84 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE To a large extent the painter, like other artists, has to produce things which do not shock common opinion and experience, and must even consciously concede to that necessity, and make the sacrifice of objective truth, in order to secure attention for his higher appeal to the sense of beauty, to emotion, and sentiment. Approved depar- tures by the artist from scientific truth are those which are deliberately made in order to give emphasis as, for instance, in the huge, but tender hand of the man in the emotional masterpiece, " Le Baiser," by the great sculptor Rodin. Another departure from objective truth, which is justified, is seen in Troyon's picture in the Louvre, where the false drawing and exaggerated size of the leg of a calf advancing towards the observer suggest, and almost give the illusion of, movement. But it can hardly be maintained that any and all the liberties which a painter or a whole school of painters choose to take with fact in their presentation of Nature are beyond criticism. It is possible for a landscape painter to improve in his treatment of the moon by better observation and increased knowledge just as other painters have learnt not to introduce into their pictures the sort of wooden rocking-horse to stand for a beautiful living animal, which satisfied Velasquez, Carl Vernet and the ancient Egyptians. CHAPTER VI THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD TO what jewel or precious stone was Shakespeare alluding when he makes the exiled Duke in "As You Like It " (after praising his rough life in the forest of Arden, and declaring that adversity has its compensations), exclaim : " The toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head " ? No doubt the unprejudiced reader supposes when he reads this passage that there is some stone or stone-like body in the head of the toad which has a special beauty, or else was believed to possess magical or medicinal properties. And it is probable that Shakespeare himself did suppose that such a stone existed. As a matter of fact there is no stone or " jewel " of any kind in the head of the common toad nor of any species of toad common or rare. This is a simple and certain result of the careful examination of the heads of innumerable toads, and is not merely " common knowledge," but actually the last word of the scientific expert. In these days of " nature study " writers familiar with toads and frogs and kindred beasts have puzzled over Shakespeare's words, and suggested that he was really referring to the beautiful eyes of the toad, which are like gems in colour and brilliance. This, however, is not the case. Shakespeare himself was simply making use of what was considered to be 86 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD " common knowledge " in his day when he made the Duke compare adversity to the toad with a magic jewel in its head, commonly known as " a toad-stone," although that " common knowledge " was really not knowledge at all, but like an enormous mass of the accepted current statements in those times, about animals, plants and stones was an absolutely baseless invention. Such baseless beliefs were due to the perfectly innocent but reckless habit of mankind, thoughout long ages, of exaggerating and building up marvellous narrations on the one hand, and on the other hand of believing without any sufficient inquiry, and with delight and enthusiasm, such marvellous narra- tions set down by others. Each writer or " gossip " concerning the wonders of unexplored nature, consciously or unconsciously, added a little to the story as received by him, and so the authoritative statements as to marvels grew more and more astonishing and interesting. It was not until the time of Shakespeare himself that another spirit began to assert itself namely, that of asking whether a prevalent belief or tradition is actually a true statement of fact. Men proceeded to test the belief by an examination of the thing in question, and not by merely adducing the assertions of " the learned so-and-so," or of " the ingenious Mr. Dash." This spirit of inquiry actually existed in a fairly active state among the more cultivated of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle (who flourished about 350 B.C.), though he could not free himself altogether from the primitive tendency to accept the marvellous as true because it is marvellous and without regard to its probability in fact because of its improbability yet on the whole showed a determination to investigate, and to see things for himself, and left in his writings an immense series of first-rate original observations. He had far more of the modern scientific spirit than had the innumerable credulous writers of Western Europe who lived fifteen THE DECAY OF CREDULITY 87 hundred to two thousand years after him. Even that delightful person Herodotus, who preceded Aristotle by a hundred years, occasionally took the trouble to inquire into some of the wonders he heard of on his travels, and is careful to say now and then that he does not believe what he heard. But the mediaeval-makers of " bestiaries," herbals, and treatises on stones, which were -collections of every possible fancy and " old-wife's tale," about animals, plants, and minerals, mixed up with Greek and Arabic legends and the mystical, medical lore of the 4 Physiologus ' that Byzantine cyclopaedia of " wisdom while you wait " deliberately discarded all attempt to set down the truth ; they simply gave that up as a bad job, and recorded every strange story, property and " applica- tion " (as they termed it) of natural objects with solemn assurance, adding a bit of their own invention to the gathered and growing mass of preposterous misunder- standing and superstition. In the seventeenth century the opposition to this method of omnivorous credulity (which even to-day, in spite of all our " progress," flourishes among both the rich and the poor) crystallised in the purpose of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge whose motto was, and is, " Nnllius in verba" (that is, " \Ye accept no man's bare assertion "), and whose original first rule, to be observed at its meetings, was that no one should discourse of his opinions or narrate a marvel, but that any member who wished to address the society should " bring in," that is to say, " exhibit " an experi- ment or an actual specimen. A new spirit, the "scientific" spirit, gave rise to and was nourished by this and similar societies of learned men. As a consequence the absur- dities and the cruel and injurious beliefs in witchcraft, astrology, and baseless legend, melted away like clouds before the rising sun. In the place of the mad nightmare 88 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD of fantastic ignorance, there grew up the solid body of unassailable knowledge of Nature and of man which we call " science " a growth which made such prodigious strides in the last century that we now may be truly said to live in the presence of a new heaven and a new earth ! It was, then, a real " stone," called the toad-stone, to which Shakespeare alluded. It is mentioned in various old treatises concerning the magical and medicinal properties of gems and stones under its Latin name, " Bufonius lapis" and was also called Borax, Nosa, Crapondinus, Crapaudina, Chelonitis, and Batrachites. It was also called Grateriano and Garatronius, after a gentle- man named Gratterus, who in 1473 found a very large one, reputed to have marvellous power. In 1657, m the " translation by a person of quality " of the * Thaumato- graphia ' of a Polish physician named Jonstonus, we find written of it : " Toads produce a stone, with their own image sometimes. It hath very great force against malignant tumours that are venomous. They are used to heat it in a bag, and to lay it hot, without anything between, to the naked body, and to rub the affected place with it. They say it prevails against inchantments of witches, especially for women and children bewitched. So soon as you apply it to one bewitched it sweats many drops. In the plague it is laid to the heart to strengthen it." Another physician of the same period (see * Notes and Queries,' fourth series, vol. vii, 1871, p. 54) appears to be affected by the new spirit of inquiry, for he relates the old traditions about the stone and how he tested them. He says it was reported that the stone could be cut out of the toad's head. (In the book called ' Hortus Sanitatis,' dated 1490, there is a picture here reproduced [Fig. 4] of a gentleman performing this operation success- fully on a gigantic toad.) Our sceptical physician, however, goes on to say that it was commonly believed A SCEPTICAL PHYSICIAN 89 that these stones are thrown out of the mouth by old toads (probably the tongue was mistaken for the stone), and that if toads are placed on a piece of red cloth they will eject their " toad-stones," but rapidly swallow them again before one can seize the precious gem ! He says that when he was a boy he procured an aged toad and FIG. 4. Representation of a man extracting the jewel from a toad's head; two "jewels" already extracted are seen dropping to the ground. From the ' Hortus Sanitatis,' published in 1490. placed it on a red cloth in order to obtain possession of " the stone." He sat up watching the toad all night, but the toad did not eject anything. " Since that time," he says, " I have always regarded as humbug (' badineries ') all that they relate of the toad-stone and of its origin." He then describes the actual stone which passes as the toad-stone, or Bufonins lapis, and says that it is also go THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD called batrachite, or brontia, or ombria. His description exactly corresponds with the " toad-stones " which are well known at the present day in collections of old rings. I have examined twelve of these rings in the British Museum, through the kindness of Sir Charles Read, P.S.A., the Keeper of Mediaeval Antiquities, and four in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Two of these are of chalcedony, with a figure of a toad roughly carved on the stone, and are of a character and origin different from the others. The others, which are the true and recognised " toad-stone " or " lapis fiu/onms" are circular, slightly convex " stones," of a drab colour, with a smooth, enamel-like surface. They are plate-like discs, being of thin substance and concave on the lower surface, which has an upstanding rim. I recognised them at once as the palatal teeth of a fossil fish called " Lepidotus," common in our own oolitic and wealden strata, and in rocks of that age all over the world. I give in Fig. 5 a drawing of a complete set of these teeth and of a single one detached. They were white and colourless in life, but are stained of various colours according to the nature of the rock in which they are embedded. A drab colour like that of the skin of the common toad is given to them by the iron salts present in many oolitic rocks ; those found in the wealden of the Isle of Wight are black. That the " toad- stones " mounted in ancient rings are really the teeth of a fish has been already recorded by the Rev. R. H. Newell ('The Zoology of the English Poets,' 1845), but he seems to be mistaken in identifying them with those of the wolf-fish (Anarrhicas). They undoubtedly are the palatal teeth of the fossil extinct ganoid fish Lepidotus. Before leaving the queer inventions and assertions of the old writers about these fossil teeth, which they declared to be taken out of the toad's head, let me quote one delightful passage from a contemporary of Shakespeare HOW TO TEST A TOAD-STONE gi (Lupton, * A thousand notable things of sundry sortes. Whereof some are wonderful, some strange, some pleasant, divers necessary, a great sort profitable, and many very precious,' London, 1595). "You shall know," he says, " whether the Toadstone called * crapaudina ' be the right and perfect stone or not. Hold the stone before a toad, so that he may see it. And if it be a right and true FIG. 5. The palate of the fossil fish Lepidotus, showing the stud- like teeth in position. These are often found singly, and stained of a dull brown colour by the rock in which they were embedded. It was the colour of these fossil teeth, like that of a toad's body, which led to the assertion that they were produced in the head of the toad. a. A single detached tooth or " toad-stone" seen from the bright unattached surface, b. The same seen from the attached surface, c. A section of the tooth showing its cup-like shape. (Original drawings.) stone, the toad will leap towards it and make as though he would snatch it from you ; he envieth so much that a man should have that stone. This was credibly told 92 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD Mizaldus for truth by one of the French King's physicians, which affirmed that he did see the trial thereof." We have thus before us the actual things called toad- stones, and believed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries to be found in the head of the toad. How did it come about that these pretty little button-like, drab-coloured fossil teeth were given such an erroneous history? This question was answered by the late Rev. C. W. King, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in his book on ' Antique Gems ' (London, I 860). He says, " I am not aware if any substance of a stony nature is ever now discovered within the head or body of the toad. Probably the whole story originated in the name Batrachites (frog-stone or toad- stone), given in Pliny to a gem brought from Coptos, and so called from its resemblance to that animal in colour." We have not, it must be noted, any specimens of the toad-stone at the present day actually known to have been brought from Coptos. It is quite possible that the fossil fish-tooth was substituted ages ago for Pliny's Batrachites, and was never found at Coptos at all ! Whether that is so or not, the fact is that Pliny never said it came out of a toad, but merely that it was of the colour of a toad. The Pliny referred to is Pliny the Elder, the celebrated Roman naturalist who wrote a great treatise on natural history, which we still possess, and died in A.D. 79 whilst visiting the eruption of Vesuvius. He says nothing of the Batrachites being found inside the toad, nor does he mention its medicinal virtues. The name alone simply the name " Batrachites," the Greek for toad-stone was sufficient to lead the fertile imagination of the mediaeval doctors to invent all the other particulars ! It is a case pre- cisely similar to that of the old lady who was credited with having vomited " three black crows." When the report was traced step by step to its source it was found that her nurse had stated that she vomited something as black as a crow ! OTHER MAGICAL STONES 93 The belief in the. existence of a stone of magical proper- ties in the head of the toad is only one of many instances of beliefs of a closely similar kind which were accepted by Pliny (although he records no such belief as to the toad- stone), and were passed on from his treatise on natural history in a more or less muddled form to the middle ages, and so to our own time by later writers. Thus Pliny cites, as . stones possessing magical properties, the " Bronte " found in the head of the tortoise, the Cinaedia in the head of a fish of that name, the Chelonites, a grass-green stone found in a swallow's belly, the Draconites, which must be cut out of the head of a live serpent, the Hyaenia from the eye of the Hyaena, and the Saurites from the bowels of a green lizard. All these and the Echites, or viper-stone, were credited with extraordinary magical virtues, and many of the assertions of later writers about the toad-stone are clearly due to their having calmly transferred the mar- vellous stories about other imaginary stones to the imagi- nary toad-stone. The only stone in the above list which has a real existence is that in the fish's head. Fish have a pair of beautiful translucent stones in their heads the ear-stones or otoliths by the laminated structure of which we now can determine the age of a fish just as a tree's age is told by the annual rings of growth in the wood of its stem. The fresh-water crayfish has a very curious pair of opaque stones (concretions of carbonate and phosphate of lime) formed in its gizzard as a normal and regular thing. They are familiar to every student who dissects a crayfish, and I am told that in Germany to-day, as m old times also, the " krebstein " is regarded by the country-folk as possessed of medicinal and magical properties. I am not able, on the present occasion, to trace out the possible origin of all the stories and beliefs about stones occurring within animals. They are more numerous than those cited by Pliny ; they exist in every race and every civilisation 94 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD and refer to a large variety of animals. Probably many of these beliefs date from prehistoric times. In the East the most celebrated of these stones, since the period of Arabic civilisation, is called a bezoar-stone. " Bezoar " is the Persian word for " antidote," and does not apply only to a stone. The true and original " bezoar-stone " of the East is a concretion found in the intestine of the Persian wild goat. Those which I have seen are usually of the size and shape of a pigeon's egg and of a fine mahogany colour, with a smooth, polished surface. The Persian goat's bezoar-stone is found, on chemical analysis, to consist of " ellagic acid," an acid allied to gallic acid, the vegetable astringent product which occurs in oak-galls used until lately in the manufacture of ink. The bezoar-stone is probably a concretion formed in the intestine from some of the undigested portions of the goat's food. Such concre- tions are not uncommon, and occur even in man. "Bezoar- stones " are obtained in the East from deer, antelopes, and even monkeys, as well as goats, and must have a different chemical nature in each case. Minute scrapings from these stones are used in the East as medicine, and their chemical qualities render their use not altogether absurd, though they probably have not any really valuable action. It is probable that their use had a later origin than that of the "stones" connected with magic and witchcraft. Six- teenth century writers, ever ready to invent a history when their knowledge was defective, declared the bezoar-stone to be formed by the inspissated tears of the deer or of the gazelle the " gum " which Hamlet remarked in aged examples of the human species. The substance called " ambergris " (grey amber), valued to-day as a perfume, is a faecal concretion similar to a bezoar-stone. It is formed in the intestine of the sperm- whale, and contains fragments of the hard parts of cuttle- fishes, which are the food of these whales. " Hair-balls " MEDICINAL AND MAGICAL STONES 95 are formed in the intestines of various large vegetarian animals and occasionally stony concretions of various chemical composition are formed in the urinary bladder of various animals, as well as of man. The " eagle-stone " is also a concretion to which magical properties were ascribed. I have seen a specimen, but do not know its history and origin. Glass beads found in prehistoric burial-places are called by old writers " adders' eggs," and " adder-stones," and were said (it is improbable that one should say " believed ") to hatch out young adders when incubated with sufficiently silly ceremonies and observ- ances, A celebrated " stone " of medicinal reputation in the East is the " goa-stone." This is a purely artificial product a mass of the size and shape of a large egg, consisting of some very fine and soft powder like fullers'- earth, sweetly scented, and over-laid with gold-leaf. A very little is rubbed off, mixed with water, and swallowed, as a remedy for many diseases. The deep connection of medicine with magic, throwing light on the strange applications of stones and hairs, bones and skins, by imaginative mankind, in all ages and places, is exhibited in the common practice of writing with ink a sentence of the Koran (or other sacred words) on a tablet, washing off the ink, and making the patient swallow the water in which the sacred phrase has been thus dissolved ! How convenient it would be were it possible thus to impart knowledge, virtue, and health to suffering humanity ! A good example of one of the ways in which magical properties became attributed to natural objects is the stone known as amethyst. The ancient Indian name of this stone had the sound represented by its present name. In Greek this sound happens to mean " not intoxicated " ; hence, without more ado, the ancients declared that the amethyst was a preventive of, and a cure for, drunkenness. CHAPTER VII FERN-SEED FIG. 6. Under-surface of the frond of the common Polypody fern, showing the circular spore-cases arranged in rows. " A 1[ TE have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible," V V says one of Prince Hal's rollicking companions in Shakespeare's play of "Henry IV." Ben Jonson, in the 'New Inn,' makes one of his characters say, "I had no medicine, sir, to go invisible, no fern-seed in my pocket." About the same time (1613) we read in a romantic poem INVISIBLE SEED 97 of "The wondrous one-night seeding Feme." Butler, in 'Hudibras,' writes, "That spring-like fern, that insect weed, equivocally without seed." And as late as Addison's 'Tatler' we are told of a quack advertising that he "had ^discovered the female fern-seed." This is all very puzzling to an age which has lost, almost entirely, the amazing traditions and superstitions which were current in the Middle Ages concerning every plant, stone, and animal. These traditions were dressed up, perverted, and confused survivals of the still earlier beliefs of innocent country-folk throughout primitive and prehistoric Europe and the East, some of them based on real experience and fact, others purely fanciful, or the outcome of a primitive system of magic and witchcraft. The puzzling thing to the modern man about the fern- seed tradition, namely, that the seed of the fern is invisible, and confers invisibility upon whomsoever may gain posses- sion of some of it and carry it in his pocket, is that so far is fern-seed from being invisible that every school-boy and school-girl knows the spore-cases of the ferns, the little brown circular or oblong patches which appear on the back of the fern-leaf or frond when mature (Fig. 6). These certainly have the appearance of being "seeds," that is to say, reproductive particles to be shed by the fern, which, as a matter of fact, they are (though not seeds in the strictly botanical sense), and it is astonishing that they were not recognised by our forefathers. It is difficult at the present day to come across anyone who knows or has heard of "fern-seed" and its marvellous properties. Yet it was a belief of the ancient inhabitants of Britain and of the French Bretagne, which they colonised, that anyone who could obtain possession of some "fern- seed" would become invisible and receive knowledge of all secrets. The belief was widely spread in this country throughout mediaeval times, and persisted till the end of 7 98 FERN-SEED the eighteenth century. As late as 1793 a respectable countryman at Heston, Middlesex, informed an inquirer that when he was a young man he had frequently taken part in catching the "fern-seed" at midnight on the eve of St. John the Baptist. The attempt to catch it was, he said, often unsuccessful, for a plate had to be placed beneath the fern, and the seed must fall into it "of its own accord," without any shaking of the plant. Another searcher of fern-seed reports that the seed must be looked for on Midsummer's Eve, and that the searcher must go barefoot, and with no other clothing than a shift. He stated that when he went to gather it the "spirits" (presumably moths or other nocturnal insects) whisked by his ears, and some- times struck his hat and various parts of his body. At length, when he thought he had gathered a good quantity of it and secured it in paper and a box, he went home. But on examining the paper and the box he found both empty ! He does not say how he expected to detect its presence, being a thing invisible! That appears to have been a distinctive and curious feature about capturing fern-seed. The ancients (Greeks and Romans) held that there was no such thing, that ferns did not produce any seed. As to how they propagated no decisive opinion existed. The mediaeval folk improved upon this. They said, "Ferns must reproduce by seed as other plants do, and since the ancients say that ferns have no seed, that must be due to the fact that the seed is there, but is invisible ! " Accordingly, they firmly held that ferns produce invisible seed, and then added to this conception, in accordance with the doctrine of signa- tures, the assertion that he who gained possession of some of this invisible seed would himself become invisible. The delightful absurdity of hunting on midsummer's night for invisible seed, as to your success in finding which you could never come to any conclusion except by yourself becoming invisible, seems to have taken firm hold on those who loved THE SPORES OF FERNS gg nocturnal rambles on summer nights in mixed company, and to have suited the mystifications and chicanery of the wizards and magicians of the day. The pursuit of fern- seed suggests Lord Bowen's evocation of "a blind man in a dark room seeking for a black cat which is not there," to which combination he compared the study of metaphysics. The most delightful piece of absurdity in the whole affair is, as I have already pointed out, that ferns of all kinds do produce a sort of seed the brown or yellow circular or oblong up-growths (Fig. 6) on the under surface of their leaves, which are little cases filled with " spores." They do not ripen till full summer or autumn, and on St. John's Eve, when the fern-seed hunter went forth, they are truly enough invisible, and practically non-existent. These spore capsules were well enough known to the early botanists, though they escaped common knowledge. They differ characteristically in number, shape and size, in such common British ferns as the bracken, the male fern, the polypody, and the hart's tongue. One reason probably for their not being associated in popular estimation with the reproduction of the fern is that the spores minute oval bodies contained in the capsules do not readily germinate, and, when they do, do not at once give rise to anything like a young fern or to the seedling of an ordinary plant. When sown on a moist surface in a damp, warmish atmosphere, the spores of a fern (Fig. 7, A) give rise each to a delicate hair-like filament (7) which pushes from one end of the oblong spore (as shown in the drawings B, C, D). It consists of a chain of " cells," nucleated corpuscles of protoplasm, which multiply by transverse fission of the leading cell (i, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the figure). In these delicate cells appear rounded particles of leaf-green or chlorophyll, that important substance by the aid of which green plants feed on carbonic acid. These " first-threads " are so minute as to be hardly noticeable, as they lie on the surface of the 100 FERN-SEED mould on to which they have been shed by the fern. When the little thread is about an eighth of an inch long, and consists of some half dozen cells arranged in a row, the front cells divide, not transversely, but parallel to the length of the thread (Fig. 7, D), and this mode of growth and division, combined with the transversal one, continues until a little green plate or flat expansion consisting of B FIG. 7. Germination of the spore of a fern. A. A single spore about -^oth of an inch in diameter. B. The protoplasm bursts from the spore-coat, S.C., and sends out a filament-like growth, T. In the third drawing, marked c, this becomes a rooting filament, and the rest has divided into five cells, 1-5, containing chloro- phyll grains. D. The front cells are now dividing laterally as well as transversely. E. The prothallus or Marchantia-like growth, twice the natural diameter. conjoined cells is produced of about half the size of a threepenny piece (E). It is not circular, but more or less heart-shaped or bilobed. This curious little growth must have a name. It is called the " prothallus " of the fern, or sometimes on account of its resemblance to the encrusta- tions formed on damp rocks and ditch-walls by the little THE PROTHALLUS OF FERNS 101 liver-wort or Marchantia it is called the Marchantia-like growth. The botanists of some two hundred years ago (such as John Ray [1670], who ridiculed a botanical friend for trying to catch fern seed on a sheet spread out on Mid- summer's Night, when the spore-cases have not yet come into existence) raised these flat green growths from spores sown on damp mould, and were at first puzzled by getting -rh p IG g, A< Underside of the prothallus of a fern showing rh., root- filaments ; an., sperm-sacs or antheridia, and ar., egg-pits or archegonia. Magnified about four times linear. B. A prothallus showing the young fern (b.) springing from it ; TV., root-axis of the young fern ; rh., root-filaments of the prothallus. no further result. It, at any rate, was clear that there was some excuse for the rustics who found no obvious connection between the contents of the spore-cases and the production of a new generation of ferns, for the thing which grew from the spore was not a fern ! But then the observations were carried further, and it was shown first in 1/15, and again later in I 7 8 5 , that from the substance of the flat green expansion or prothallus, after an interval of time 102 FERN-SEED delicate young fern-fronds of minute size shoot up by vertical growth (Fig. 8, B). The method of the reproduc- tion of ferns and the proof of the seed-like nature of the spores was now regarded as at last demonstrated. The mystery of " fern-seed" was thought to be at an end. But this was really far from the case. It seems to many of us a commonplace though doubt- less it is news to some that flowering plants produce " germs," or egg-cells in the centre of the flowers in that part called the pistil and that the heads of the stamens produce a powder of fine granules called the"" pollen-grains," which either fall or are carried by wind or by insects (or by the gardener, when he carries out " artificial pollina- tion ") on to the sticky end of the pistil (called the stigma) and there grow down into the inside of the pistil as deli- cate threads, so that they reach the germs or ovules fuse with them, and so " fertilise " them. The fertilised ovules then undergo a growth, swell up and become ripe " seeds." Yet this process of " the fertilisation of flowers," and the significance of pollen as the male fertilising element, was quite unknown until a little over two hundred years ago, when it was discovered by one Nehemiah Grew (who was in 1677 secretary of the Royal Society of London) in the old Physick Garden opposite Magdalen College at Oxford. Seventeen years later it was placed on a sure footing by the experiments of Jacob Camerarius, who proved that " seed " does not become fertile unless fecundated by pollen. It is a singular fact that the ancients had no conception of the existence of male and female reproductive particles in plants. They seem to have regarded " pollen " as meaningless dust. Aristotle expressly declares that plants have no males and females, though he says he knew some facts which led him to conclude that some trees " aid " others in the production of fruit, as in the case of the fig-tree and the capri-fig. The aid given in that case is now known FERTILISATION OF FIGS AND PALMS 103 to be due to the fact that the capri-fig is merely a short- styled form of the fig and is attacked by a gall-wasp which destroys its ovules. The gall-wasps hatched in the fig escape from the opening of the urn-like fig and get covered with pollen, which they carry to other figs (not infected by the gall-wasps), and, entering their urns, ferti- lise them with the pollen which they bring on their bodies. It is only by these gall-wasps that the fig can be fertilised and produce seed. But as figs are nowadays propagated by " cuttings," and not by seed, the capri-fig has no longer any economic importance. The ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, as we see by their sculptures, knew and prac- tised artificial fertilisation of the date-palm. Aristotle's pupil, Theophrastus, entertained the notion that this was similar to the sexual process in animals, but dismissed it on the ground that such a process could not occur in one kind of tree only, but would be found in many or all plants, if it occurred at all ! Long after him the Roman country gentleman, Pliny, stated his belief that the pollen of the date-palm does act in the same way as the fertilising fluid of male animals, and he added that all trees, and even herbs, have two sexes. But this well-founded view did not receive any support among philosophers and natura- lists. The authority of Aristotle gave prevalence to his mistaken view for many centuries. Crew's observations at the end of the seventeenth century, which were con- firmed and extended by other botanists, were actually the first discovery of the sexuality of plants. It was natural enough that the botanists after Grew's time, who succeeded in growing the flat green prothallus, and then young ferns from fern spores, should regard the spores as ovules, and proceed to look for organs on the fern frond corresponding to the anthers of the stamens of flowering plants, which they expected would be found to produce a fertilising element like the pollen grain. Hairs 104 FERN-SEED and other minute growths upon the fern leaf were described as being the stamens, the producers of the fertilising male element ; but all in vain ! No attempted demonstration of such organs was successful, and, as a matter of fact, they do not exist ! It was not until the nineteenth century, actually within living memory, that the real history of the reproduction of ferns was discovered. It was not possible to ascertain the fact until the microscope had been improved and the methods of study of the structure of plants and animals had made vast progress and yielded a mass of new knowledge. It was discovered in I 844 (Nageli and Suminski) that upon the under surface of the flat green prothallus which develops from the fern spore, two kinds of minute warts take their origin (see Fig. 8, A). The one are little volcano- like protuberances, each containing a single ovule or egg- cell, and may be called egg-pits (Fig. 9, D' and D) ; the other kind are tiny sacs which contain liquid full of actively moving spiral filaments (beset with vibrating hairs or cilia), resembling in essential character the sper- matozoa or motile sperm filaments of animals ; they are the sperm-sacs (Fig. 9, A and A 1 ). The excessively minute microscopic motile " sperms " escape by the burst- ing of the sacs, and swim through the film of water on the surface of the "prothallus" (Fig. 9, B and c). When one of these microscopic sperm-screws (S/.) thus arrives at one of the volcano-like egg-pits, it plunges into its opening and fuses with the contained egg cell, thus fer- tilising it (Fig. 9, D). It is then, and not until then, that the egg cell commences to grow and divide, and gives rise to the young fern plant (Fig. 8, B, &). The fern plant nourishes itself and develops rapidly, whilst the little green prothallus, having borne its crop of eggs and sperms, withers, and is seen no more. The fern plant, on attaining full size and maturity, produces, as did its grandparent, 105 FIG. 9. The sperm-sacs and egg-pits of the prothallus of the ferns highly magnified. A'. Surface view of a ripe open sperm-sac. A. Section through it, showing the flattened cells forming its walls and the contained corkscrew-like "sperms." B. The minute wriggling sperms (Sp.) escaping from the sperm-sac into the water adhering to the surface of the pruthallus. c. A single sperm still more magnified. D'. Surface view of an open egg- pit. D. Section through an unfertilised egg-pit. Sp. A sperm swimming towards the open mouth of the egg-pit. Con. Cells forming conducting- plug along which the sperm will travel. Ov. Ovule or egg-cell. E. Fertilised egg-pit. In. The orifice. Ov. The ovule now ferti- lised and enlarging. io6 FERN-SEED spore cases on the back of its leaves, which in due time shed their minute unicellular spores, and these falling on the moist earth grow, without any " fertilisation " by pollen or sperm, into marchantia-like prothalli. Thus there are two distinct generations in the life-history of the fern. The first is the large foliaceous plant with stem and leaves, which we call a fern. It produces spores of only one kind ; they are self-sufficient, and germinate without any fusion with, or fertilisation by, sperm or pollen. This generation the fern plant we call " the spore-bearer," or sexless generation. The second generation is the little flat prothallus which arises from the spores of the spore-bearer. It and this is the remarkable thing which so long escaped the observation of botanists produces male and female reproductive organs the sperm-sacs and the egg-pits. It, small and obscure though it be, is a complete organism in itself, producing " eggs " or " germ-cells " which are duly fertilised by sperm threads. We call it, in contrast to the first generation, " the egg-and-sperm bearer," or the sexual generation. Each of its fertilised eggs gives rise by growth and development to a spore-bearer or fern. Thus, then, there is an alternation of the two generations, the spore-bearing big fern and the egg-and-sperm-bearing marchantia-like prothallus. After all, our ancestors were right in thinking that something very queer and unusual underlay the propagation of ferns ! Not the least note- worthy fact in the matter is that the male fertilising element of the sexual generation of the fern is not dry, dusty " pollen " as in -flowering plants, but microscopic aquatic " spermatozoa " like those of animals. Thereby hangs a tale of extraordinary interest as to the nature and origin of flowering plants to which I will give a new chapter. CHAPTER VIII FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS WE have seen that the spores of ferns falling on the ground produce little flat green patches the "pro- thalli " upon which female egg-pits and male sperm-sacs in due course make their appearance, and that the microscopic screw-like sperms (or " antherozoids " as the botanists call them) escape from the sacs and actively swim to the egg- pits through the film of water covering the damp growth. They enter the egg-pits and " fertilise " the contained egg-cell. All plants simpler than ferns, such as horse- tails, mosses, seaweeds, and water-weeds (with some excep- tions) have actively motile aquatic " sperms " like those of the fern. And so, be it noted, have animals. All plants higher and more elaborate than the ferns such as the conifers and flower-bearing trees, shrubs, and herbs (with the rare exception among living plants of the Gingko tree and the Cycads), cease to produce aquatic motile sperms. Their male spores are the familiar dust-like dry " pollen " from which, when it falls on the sticky stigma of the flower a solid filament grows and penetrates to the egg-cells buried in the germen, or egg-holding central part of the flower. Thus, ferns seem to represent a stage half-way between the lower plants and the higher. And as a matter of fact, in regard to many points of their structure, they do. Recent discoveries of fossil fern-like plants of great age have led to the definite conclusion that loS FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS from ancient ferns the whole galaxy of modern cone- and flower-bearing higher plants have been derived by a slow process of change, step by step. Before we look further at this interesting history, let me tell of a very remarkable discovery about the active little swimming sperms of the fern's sexual generation. More than thirty years ago, one of the ablest of living botanists Pfeffer by name was watching with his microscope the movements of the swimming fern "sperms" (see Fig. 9, B, C) in the presence of one of the tiny egg-pits which he had cut off from a " prothallus," and placed in a thin film of water covered by thin glass, under a high magnifying power. He saw that as the sperms approached the egg- pit they seemed to be drawn by some attractive force to the mouth of the little volcano-like pit, and plunged with great rapidity and directness into it. He came to the conclusion that this must be due to the diffusion of some soluble chemical substance from the mouth of the egg-pit, which acted upon the distant sperms, and attracted and guided them to it. He determined to find out what this substance was, but the egg-pits are so minute that it was not possible to collect the attractive substance, if there, and to make a chemical analysis of it. He therefore proceeded to attempt to solve the problem in another manner. He prepared, by aid of the blowpipe, a very delicate, hairlike glass tube, and breaking it into very short lengths filled each little piece with a different soluble chemical substance, such as might probably be produced by the plant. Then he placed them one by one in a film of water under his microscope, into which he had already introduced a quantity of the active, swimming, screw-like little sperms of the fern's prothallus. He watched to see whether in any case an attractive influence was exerted upon the swimming crowd of sperms. He tried a whole series of possible chemical substances, such as sugar, CHEMICAL ATTRACTION 109 tartaric acid, acetic acid, and other vegetable products, without success the sperms took no notice. At last (I believe it was the seventeenth of the substances he tried) he filled one of his little tubes with a dilute solution of the acid which is found in pears and apples, and is called " malic acid " (from the Latin " malum," an apple) and placed it as before. A marvellous sight then greeted his eye. He saw the little sperms violently and eagerly swimming to the minute glass tube containing the malic acid, and crowding into it. This, then, was the attractive substance produced by the egg-pit of the fern's prothallus ! The microscopic, screw-like particles of protoplasm are guided in their movement by the dilute stream of malic acid issuing from the egg-pit. It is a curious coincidence that the name of this acid is appropriate as being irre- sistibly attractive to the male fertilising sperms. Pfeffer gave to this process of the chemical guidance of simple protoplasm which is in its results similar to that produced by the sense of smell and taste in higher organisms the name " chemotaxis." It has since been recognised as a general process of great importance in affecting the movements of minute protoplasmic particles such as the white or colourless corpuscles of the blood (phagocytes) and the ubiquitous swarming bacteria and bacilli. Chemotaxis may cause attraction, and is then called " positive chemotaxis," or it may cause repulsion, when it is called "negative chemotaxis." The chemical sub- stances which produce it are by no means limited to malic acid, but are endless in variety : oxygen gas, as well as various elaborate organic substances, are " positively chemotactic " to many microscopic organisms ; weak acids and such bodies as quinine are negatively chemotactic. The moving towards and repulsion from other sources of " stimulation " are conveniently spoken of by the use of the same words, " taxis " and " tactic " ; thus the attraction no FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS and repulsion caused by light is called " phototaxis," that caused by moisture " hygrotaxis," and so on. A most important chapter in our knowledge of the activities of protoplasm and of simple protoplasmic cells is based on the study of these attractions and repulsions, which, whilst they appear as arbitrary properties determined by causes which are not immediately evident, are yet capable of modification by experimental alteration of the conditions in which the protoplasm exists, so that we are entitled to speak of " the education " of such microscopic particles by which they can be rendered either more or, on the other hand, less sensitive to " chemotactic " agents. To revert now to the question of the relationship of ferns to higher plants. The following points are of impor- tance : ( I ) Though true ferns produce from their spores prothalli which carry both sperm-sacs and egg-pits on the same specimen, yet some fern-like plants produce prothalli which carry only egg-pits, and others which carry only sperm-sacs, the two kinds growing side by side from the spores shed by the fern; (2) the spores which produce the female or egg-bearing prothalli are in some cases much larger than those which produce the male, or sperm-sac- bearing prothalli. We then distinguish large female-pro- ducing spores from small male-producing spores; (3) some ferns for instance our native Royal fern (Osmunda regalis] do not produce spores on all the leaflets of a frond, but only on those near the tip, which are narrower and less leaf-like than those lower down (Fig. 10, A). Hence this fern is called " the flowering fern." For the essence of a flower is that it is a set of leaves like the other leaves of the flowering plant, usually not green and flat, as they are, but modified one or more whorls of them being often coloured and arranged, so as to close over the terminal or tip leaves, which are called " stamens " and " carpels," and bear the reproductive particles (Fig. i o, Ill H2 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS D and E). Many varieties and " sports " of cultivated plants show clearly enough that the stamens are leaves, and that the segments of the central or terminal part, the " pistil," are also leaves carpellary leaves or " carpels," as they are called. Double-flowers are sports in which all the staminal, or male, and all the carpels, or female structures assume the form of leaves like the coloured circlet called the petals. But sometimes " sports " go further and all take on the colour and structure of green foliage leaves, as is the case in the green rose, of which an example exists in Kew Gardens. In this way it becomes evident that foliage leaves and the close-set whorls of the parts of the flower are all of the same nature, namely, leaves, or " foliar appendages." An examination of the parts of the flower of the finest of English flowers, the common water lily, will convince any doubter that this is true. The modified tip of the frond of the flowering fern is in its nature the same thing as a flower, and would only need to be made a little more compact, and to have its spore- bearing leaflets set in whorls surrounded by others devoid of spores, in order to fully justify us in calling it a " flower." But what about the spores and the two generations, the spore-bearer and the egg-and sperm-bearer of the fern ? How are they represented in the flowering plant ? It is true there is no visible second generation in the flowering plant. But this is not because it is not there ; it is because it is so small and so much altered that it has taken a great deal of time and ingenuity for botanists to find it out. Among ferns there are some which have a very minute sexual generation or prothallus, and the spores of one part may drop on to the fronds of another part and germinate there and give rise to the sexual prothallus without falling to the ground, so that little ferns are seen growing on the surface of the bigger fronds. You may see such ferns TRANSITION FROM FERNS TO FLOWERS 113 in greenhouses. But there are yet other cases among fern-like plants, in which the big spores mentioned above actually germinate without quitting the leaflet on which they are formed and produce very minute prothalli bearing egg-pits without separation from the spore-bearing fern ! Now, it is no stretch of the imagination to conceive of fern- like plants as having once existed, in which the leaflets bearing large spores should be grouped like the scales of a pine-cone or the whorls of a flower so as to protect the large spores, and that these spores should " germinate " beneath their coats each where it is fixed, thus producing without falling from its place of origin a minute, solid, little prothallus, which in due course produces one or more egg- pits, each holding a single egg-cell. Each such leaflet is a carpel or carpellary leaf. At the same time the leaflets carrying the small spores destined to produce prothalli, which will carry only sperm-sacs, must be supposed to have formed either a separate male cone or a male flower, or to have arranged themselves around the female carpels as stamens or staminal leaflets. We shall see what happens to the small spores which they produce. How, then, are we to suppose that fertilisation took place ? The extinct plants in which these changes actually arose were not small or aquatic in habit. They were well grown shrubs and trees. This is what occurred. The staminal or male leaflets produced their small spores in spore-cases (the anthers), and the cases burst, setting free the male-prothallus-producing spores, which are, in fact, the same thing as the pollen grains of higher plants. Unlike the female-prothallus-producing spores, or big spores, they do not remain in place, but are shed in showers of millions into the air. They are blown by the wind (as we see to-day in the case of pines and many other trees), and are carried by it to the female or car- pellary cones, or maybe to rosette-like female flowers. 8 H4 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS The dispersal of the male-spores, or pollen, by wind was the earlier method ; it was not until a late geological period the cretaceous, or chalk that (as their fossil remains show us) insects capable of feeding on the honey of flowers, and coloured flowers capable of attracting the insects by sight, came into existence ; and it is since that period that all the wonderful relations and adaptations of flower to insect, and insect to flower, have been brought about. Before that, the wind-blown pollen-grains, or male- prothallus-spores, were in such profusion that some of them were carried by the wind to the surface of the car- pellary leaflets of the female cones, or rosettes, as occurs to-day in the pine-trees which shed enormous quantities of pollen-dust in the spring. There the pollen spore germinated instead of waiting to reach the ground and produce its little thread-like prothallus. In early geological times (Oolitic) as we know from certain rare trees which have persisted from those times, when they were very abundant, to this day, viz. the Japanese Gingko tree, or Maiden's Hair fern-tree, and the Cycads, or palm-conifers the little " prothallus " which emerged out of the pollen- spore was not a simple filament as it is in the case of the pollen of our modern flowering plants. The pollen-spore of the Gingko tree and the Cycads actually produces in these survivors of primitive forms at least one sperm-sac containing liquid in which are motile sperms. And the egg-pit of the female prothallus developed from the big spores borne by the carpellary leaflets of the female flowers is not so reduced or simple a thing as it is in modern flowering plants. It is a real pit containing liquid, and the motile sperms from the pollen's prothallus which pushes itself into the little pit, are liberated and swim about in the liquid of the reservoir or chamber formed by the egg-pit, and then fuse with the egg-cells there em- bedded and fertilise them. We see there is still a great THE GINGKO TREE AND GYGADS 115 deal of the separate sexual generation retained. Much of this has been done away with in the process of time in the course of those changes which have given us the great modern group of flowering plants and trees. There is in modern flower-bearing trees and herbs no pit, pro- vided by the female prothallus, containing liquid for the motile sperms to swim about in ; the pollen-prothallus no longer produces motile sperms. It does not even divide into a chain of cells, but becomes a very small thread called the "pollen-tube," and makes its way by growth into contact with the egg-cell embedded in loose tissue, and itself fuses with the egg-cell. Thus, in the modern group of flowering plants, the female prothallus is reduced to a solid particle of tissue in which an egg-cell is set, and the male prothallus does not even arrive at the dignity of forming cells and tissue, let alone sperms ; it is a simple protoplasmic filament which issues from the " small spore " or pollen grain. In the living survivors of the great forests of Gingko trees and Cycad-like plants intermediate between ferns and modern flowering plants which flourished in the oolitic period, two Japanese botanists, Hirase and Ikeno, discovered twenty years ago that the pollen-grains the male fertilising spores (familiar in all our modern flowering plants) when carried on to the female flowers, produce by cell-division a growth like the little green " prothallus " of the fern, and that this growth, penetrating the female structures, gives rise to actively swimming sperms (as does the prothallus of a fern), which are received into a liquid- holding cavity of the egg-producing growth of the female spores. These female spores and the little egg-producing plants to which they give rise remain attached to and fixed on the leaf where they originate, instead of being shed, as in the case of ferns ; but the same process of fertilisation by sperms which swim freely in liquid takes n6 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS place in the Gingko and the Cycads as occurs in the detached, separately growing sexual generation or " pro- thallus " of the fern. These remarkable survivals of the fern-stage of develop- ment are suppressed in the modern " flowering plants," the pine trees and the whole host of trees and herbs which bear " flowers." In them there are no " sperms," but the pollen- spore gives rise, when carried to the carpels or female leaves, to a minute hair-like filament, almost devoid of structure. The pollen filament, thus growing, penetrates the tissues surrounding the equivalent of the egg-bearing "pro- thallus," which is never shed, but remains fixed to the female leaf on which it originated. Thus the ovule or egg-cell is "fertilised," so to speak "in place," by the pollen filament itself without the production of any separate "sperms." The sexual or "prothallus" generation of the fern is in fact reduced and becomes, so far as the female is concerned, a minute part of the large spore-bearing plant or first gene- ration, whilst so far as the male spore (pollen) is concerned, it is detached as in ferns, but never develops further than the condition of a tiny filament, and never produces sperms. No one would ever guess that such a history lay behind the pollen and the seed of our common plants on first acquaintance with them. The discovery was one of the many great triumphs of scientific investigation in the second half of "the wonderful century" which closed ten years ago. The fertilised ovule or egg-cell of the flowering plant is contained in an envelope and packing of more or less numerous " coats." It swells up when fertilised and com- mences to grow within its case as a young plant, and is said to be a ripe and fully-formed " seed " when its envelope becomes hard and protective. The formation of what is properly called " seed " is a protective process in which the young embryo, already well advanced in growth, is en- EXTINCT SEED-PRODUCING FERNS 117 veloped in a variety of ways in different instances and is arrested for a time, often a very long time, in its further growth. The envelopes may be big or small, whilst the living germ within sometimes minute, sometimes big, as in the bean, and bigger still in the cocoa-nut is further protected and assisted in its dispersal by the swelling up, around the seeds, of the substance of the carpels or big spore-bearing leaves, to form the "fruit." Nothing like a seed (that is, a true seed in the botanical sense), nor anything corresponding to a fruit is developed in true ferns, but there were ancient ferns (in the coal-measures) which are shown by well-preserved fossils to have produced attached "seeds" instead of detached prothalli, and consti- tute a group called "seeding ferns." They lead on to primitive cycads (so-called fern-cycads) and primitive coni- fers in the succeeding Oolitic age, from which our modern flowering plants and pine trees have finally arisen. Our ferns of to-day often attain the size of trees (the tree-ferns in Australasia are 50 feet high), but they remain at the lower stage of elaboration of the reproductive process. The extinct "seeding ferns" formed the step leading on to further changes, and they have left no survivors of precisely their own grade of development. The gradual develop- ment of the flower and the fruit followed in their offspring by steps which have been very largely ascertained in fossil remains of the Oolitic period. The development of the colours and shapes of our modern dominant flowering plants under the influence of insects was a later step, in tracing which the fossilised remains of plants and animals give us only the negative indication that there were neither such flowers nor such insects until the chalk period that landmark of geologic progress which in many ways marks off the more modern animals and plants of the Tertiary perio^ from the Secon- dary, in which great reptiles and the ancient cycads and n8 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS gingko-trees flourished. It is a very curious and significant fact, when one thinks it over, that the beautiful shapes and colours of flowers which human beings admire and love so much to-day, have been produced by the habit of insects seeking honey and pollen as nourishment from flowers which were at first dull-coloured or green, but became brilliant in colour and arresting in shape by natural selection and survival of the fit. Those flowers which at first by variation variation which always and simply must occur, because all nature varies and changes in detail as time goes on showed a patch of colour, were seen and visited by the insects, were accordingly fertilised by the pollen carried on the body of the insect, and so were favoured and transmitted their variation, their ten- dency to produce colour, to their offspring. Thus, through the agency of the insects, bright obvious flowers of various colours and shapes were little by little developed. At first a little colour would gain success, but more and more, in the competition for place and nourishment, the brightest and (to the insects) most attractive colourings and shapes would gain favour and multiply. And so at last we have that world of beauty the flowers as we see them to-day in all their loveliness of colour and pattern created, pro- duced, even as man produces new garden kinds, by those innocent little horticulturists the flower-seeking insects. CHAPTER IX ELEPHANTS IX the novel by that clever but contradictious writer, Sam Butler, entitled 'The Way of All Flesh,' an amiable and philosophically minded old gentleman, who pervades the story, states that when one feels worried or depressed by the incidents of one's daily life, great comfort may be derived from an hour spent at the Zoological Gardens in company with the larger mammalia. He ascribes to them a remarkable soothing influence, and I am inclined to agree with him. I am not prepared to decide whether the effect is due to the example of patience under adversity offered by these animals, or whether it is perhaps their tranquil indifference to everything but food, coupled with their magnificent success in attaining to such dignity of size, which imposes upon me and fills me for a brief space with resignation and a childlike acquiescence in things as they are. The elephant stands first as a soothing influence, and then the giraffe, the latter having special powers, due to its beautiful eyes and agreeable perfume. Sometimes the hippopotamus may diffuse a charm of his own, an aura of rotund obesity, especially when he is bathing or sleeping ; but there are moments when one has to flee from his presence. I never could get on very well with rhinoceroses, but the large deer, bison, and wild cattle have the quality detected by Mr. Butler. So has the gorgeous, well-grown tiger, in full measure, when he 120 ELEPHANTS purrs in answer to one's voice : but the lion is pompous, irritable, and easily upset. He never purrs. He is unpleasantly and obscurely spotted. He seems to be afraid of losing his dignity, and to be conscious of the fact that his reputation like that of some English officials depends on the overpowering wig which he now wears, though his Macedonian forerunner had no such growth to give an illusive appearance of size and capacity to his head. However opinions may differ about these things, all will agree that the elephant (or " Oliphant," as he was FIG. ii. The Indian elephant (Elephas maximns or indicus}. Observe the small size of its ear-flap. called in France 400 years ago) is the most imposing, fascinating, and astonishing of all animals. At the present day there are two species only of elephant existing on the earth's surface. These are the Indian (Fig. I i) (called Elephas indicus, but sometimes called Elephas maxiinus on account of the priority which belongs to that designation, although the Indian elephant is smaller than the other), and the African (Fig. I 2) (called Elephas Africanus). In the wild state their area of occupation has become greatly diminished within historic times. The Indian elephant was hunted in Mesopotamia THE INDIAN AND AFRICAN ELEPHANT 121 in the twelfth century B.C., and Egyptian drawings of the eighteenth dynasty show elephants of this species brought as tribute by Syrian vassals. To-day the Indian elephant is confined to certain forests of Hindoostan, Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. The African elephant extended 100 years ago all over South Africa, and in the days of the Carthaginians was found near the Mediterranean shore, whilst in prehistoric (late Pleistoscene) times it existed in the south of Spain and in Sicily. Now it is confined to X2 FIG. 12. The African elephant (Elephas africanus) with rider mounted on its back. The drawing is an enlarged representation of an ancient Carthaginian coin. the more central and equatorial zone of Africa, and is yearly receding before the incursions and destructive attacks of civilised man. At no great distance of time before the historic period, earlier, indeed, than the times of the herdsmen who used polished stone implements and raised great stone circles, namely, in the late pleistocene period, we find that there existed all over Europe and North Asia and the northern part of America another elephant very closely allied to the 122 ELEPHANTS Indian elephant, but having a bow-like outward curvature of the tusks, their points finally directed towards one another, and a thick growth of coarse hair all over the body. This is " the mammoth," the remains of which are found in every river valley in England, France and Germany, and of which whole carcases are frequently dis- covered in Northern Siberia, preserved from decay in the frozen river gravels and " silt." The ancient cave-men of France used the fresh tusks of the mammoth killed on the spot for their carvings and engravings, and from their time to this the ivory of the mammoth has been, and remains, in constant use. It is estimated that during the last two centuries at least I oo pairs of mammoths' tusks have been each year exported from the frozen lands of Siberia. In early mediaeval times the trade existed, and some ivory carvings and drinking horns of that age appear to be fashioned from this more ancient ivory. Already, then, within the human period we find elephants closely similar to those of our own time, far more numerous and widely distributed than in our own day, and happily established all over the temperate regions of the earth- even in our Thames Valley and in the forests where London now spreads its smoky brickwork. When we go further back in time as the diggings and surveying of modern man enable us to do we find other elephants of many different species, some differing greatly from the three species I have mentioned, and leading us back by gradual steps to a comparatively small animal, about the size of a donkey, without the wonderful trunk or the immense tusks of the later elephants. By the discovery and study of these earlier forms we have within the last ten years arrived at a knowledge of the steps by which the elephant acquired in the course of long ages (millions of years) his " proboscis " (as the Greeks first called it), and I will later sketch that history. SIZE OF MODERN ELEPHANTS 123 But now let us first of all note some of the peculiarities of living elephants and the points by which the two kinds differ from one another. The most striking fact about the elephant is its enormous size. It is only exceeded among living animals by whales ; it is far larger than the biggest bull, or rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. A fair-sized Indian elephant weighs two to three tons (Jumbo, one of the African species, weighed five), and requires as food 60 Ib. of oats, I i truss of hay, I i truss of corn a day, costing together in this country about 5 s. ; whereas a large cart-horse weighs i 5 cwt., and requires weekly three trusses of hay and 80 Ib. of oats, costing together I 2s. } or about I s. 8^d. a day. It is this which has proved fatal to the elephant since man took charge of the world. The elephant requires so much food and takes so many years in growing up (twenty or more before he his old enough to be put to work), that it is only in countries where there is a superabundance of forest in which he can be allowed to grow to maturity at his own " charges " (so to speak) that it is worth while to attempt to domesticate and make use of him. For most purposes three horses are more " handy" than one elephant. The elephant is caught when he is already grown up, and then trained. It is as a matter of economy that he is not bred in confinement, and not because there is any insuper- able difficulty in the matter. Occasionally elephants have bred in menageries. There is no doubt that the African elephant at the present day grows to a larger size than the Indian, though it was the opinion of the Romans of the Empire that the Indian elephant was the more powerful, courageous, and intelligent of the two. It seems next to impossible to acquire at the present day either specimens or trustworthy records of the largest Indian elephants. About loft. 6 in. at the shoulder seems to be the maximum, though they are dressed up by their native owners with platforms and 124 ELEPHANTS coverings to make them look bigger. In India the skin of domesticated individuals is polished and carefully stained, like an old boot, by the assiduity of their guardians, so that a museum specimen of exceptional size, fit for exhibition and study, cannot be obtained. On the other hand, the African elephant not unfrequently exceeds a height of I i ft. at the shoulder. With some trouble I obtained one exceeding this measurement direct from East Africa for the Natural History Museum, where it now stands. It seems highly probable that this species occasionally exceeds 1 2 ft. in height. On the ground, between the great African elephant's fore and hind legs, in the museum, I placed a stuffed specimen of the smallest terrestrial mammal the pigmy shrew-mouse. It is worth while thus calling to mind that the little animal has practi- cally every separate bone, muscle, blood-vessel, nerve, and other structure present in the huge monster compared with it is, in fact, built closely upon the same plan, and yet is so much smaller that it is impossible to measure one by the other. The mouse is only about one fifth the length of the elephant's eye. According to ancient Oriental fable, the mouse and the dragon were the only two animals of which the elephant was afraid. The African elephant has much larger tusks relatively to his size than the Indian, and both males and females have them, whereas the Indian female has none. A very fine Indian elephant's tusk weighs from 75lb. to 8olb. The record for an African elephant's tusk was (according to standard books) I 80 Ib. But I obtained ten years ago for the museum, where it now may be seen, an African elephant's tusk weighing 228^1b. Its fellow weighed a couple of pounds less. It measures loft. 2 in. in length along the curvature. This tusk was recognised by Sir Henry Stanley's companion, Mr. Jephson, when he was with me in the museum, as actually one which he had last EARS AND TEETH OF ELEPHANTS 125 seen in the centre of Africa. He told me that he had, in fact, weighed and measured this tusk in the treasury of Emin Pasha, in Central Africa, when he went with Stanley to bring Emin down to the coast. As will be remembered, Emin had no wish to go to the coast, but returned to his province. He was subsequently attacked and murdered by an Arab chief, who appropriated his store of ivory, and in the course of time had it conveyed to the ivory market at Zanzibar. The date of the purchase there of the museum specimen corresponds with the history given by Mr. Jephson. The African elephant (as may be seen by comparing the small one now living in Regent's Park with its neigh- bours) has a sloping forehead graduating into the trunk or proboscis, instead of the broad, upright brow of the Indian. He also has very much larger ears, which lie against the shoulders (except when he is greatly excited) like a short cape or cloak (see Fig. I 2). These great ears differ somewhat in shape in the elephants of different parts of Africa, and local races can be distinguished by the longer or shorter angle into which the flap is drawn out. The grinding teeth of the, two elephants differ very markedly, but one must see these in a museum. The grinders are very large and long (from behind forwards), coming into place one after the other. Each grinder occupies, when fully in position, the greater part of one side of the upper or of the lower jaw. They are crossed from right to left by ridges of enamel, like a series of mountains and valleys, which gradually wear down by rubbing against those of the tooth above or below. The biggest grinder of the Indian elephant has twenty-four of these transverse ridges, whilst that of the African has only eleven, which are therefore wider apart (See Fig. 13). An extinct kind of elephant the mastodon had only five such ridges on its biggest grinders, and four or 126 ELEPHANTS only three on the others. Other ancestral elephants had quite ordinary-looking grinders, with only two or three irregular ridges or broad tubercles. Both the Indian and African elephant have hairless, rough, very hard, wrinkled skins. But the newborn young are covered with hair, and some Indian elephants living in cold, mountainous regions appear to retain a certain amount of B FIG. 13. The crowns of three "grinders" or molars of elephants compared. A is that of an extinct mastodon with four transverse ridges; B is that of the African elephant with nine ridges in use and ground flat ; C is that of the mammoth with sixteen narrow ridges in use the rest, some eight in number, are at the left hand of the figure and not yet in use. hair through life. The mammoth (which agreed with the Indian elephant in the number of ridges on its grinders and in other points) lived in quite cold, sub-Arctic condi- tions, at a time when glaciers completely covered Scandi- navia and the north of our islands as well as most of WHEN ELEPHANTS BROUGHT TO EUROPE 127 Germany. It retained a complete coat of coarse hair throughout life. The young of our surviving elephants only exhibit transitorily the family tendency. The last mammoth probably disappeared from the area which is now Great Britain about 150,000 years ago. It might be supposed that no elephant was seen in England again until the creation of " menageries " and " zoological Gardens " within the last two or three hundred years. This, however, is by no means the case. The Italians in the middle ages, and through them the French and the rulers of Central Europe, kept menageries, and received as presents, or in connection with their trade with the East and their relations with Eastern rulers, frequent specimens of strange beasts from distant lands. Our King Henry I, had a menagerie at Woodstock, where he kept a porcu- pine, lions, leopards, and a camel ! The Emperor Charlemagne received in 803 A.D. from Haroun al Raschid, the Caliph of Bagdad, an elephant named Abulabaz. It was brought to Aix-la-Chapelle by Isaac the Jew, and died suddenly in 8 1 o. Some four and a half centuries later (in 1257), Louis IX, of France, returning from the Holy Land, sent as a special and magnificent present to Henry III, King of England (according to the chronicle of Matthew Paris), an elephant which was ex- hibited at the Tower of London. It was supposed by the chronicler to be the first ever brought to England, and indeed the first to be taken beyond Italy, for he did not know of Charlemagne's specimen. In 1591 King Henry IV of France, wishing to be very polite to Queen Elizabeth of England, and apparently rather troubled by the expense of keeping the beast himself, sent to her, having heard that she would like to have it, an elephant which had been brought from the " Indies " and landed at Dieppe. He declared it to be the first which had ever come into France, but presented it to Her Majesty " as I 128 ELEPHANTS would most willingly present anything more excellent did I possess it." Thenceforward elephants were from time to time exhibited at the Tower, together with lions and other strange beasts acquired by the Crown. None of these elephants were, however, " the first who ever burst " into remote Britain after the mammoths had disappeared, and we were separated from Europe by the geological changes which gave us the English Channel- La Manche. Though Julius Caesar himself does not mention it, it is definitely stated by a writer on strategy named Polyaenus, a friend of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, but not, I am sorry to say, an authority to whose statements historians attach any serious value that Caesar made use of an elephant armed with iron plates and carrying on its back a tower full of armed men to terrify the ancient Britons when he crossed the Thames an operation which he carried out, I believe, somewhere between Molesey and Staines. Elephants are often spoken of as " Ungulates," and classed by naturalists with the hoofed animals (the odd-toed tapirs, rhinoceroses, and horses, and the even-toed pigs, camel, cattle, and deer). But there is not much to say in defence of such an association. The elephants have, as a matter of fact, not got hoofs, and they have five toes on each foot. The five toes of the front foot have each a nail, whilst usually only four toes of the hind foot have nails. A speciality of the elephant is the great circular pad of thick skin overlying fat and fibrous tissue, which forms the sole of the foot and bears the animal's enormous weight. This buffer-like development of the foot existed in some great extinct mammals (the Dinoceras family, of North America), but is altogether different from the support given by a horse's hoof or the paired shoe-like hoofs of great cattle or the three rather elegant hoofed toes of the rhinoceros. THE ELEPHANTS LEGS 129 The Indian elephant likes good, solid ground to walk on, and when he finds himself in a boggy place will seize any large objects (preferably big branches of trees) and throw them under his feet to prevent himself sinking in. Occasionally he will remove the stranger who is riding on his back and make use of him in this way. The circum- ference of the African elephant's fore-foot is found by hunters to be half the animal's height at the shoulder, and is regarded as furnishing a trustworthy indication of his stature. The legs of the elephant differ from those of more familiar large animals in the fact that the ankle and the wrist (the so-called knee of the horse's fore-leg) are not far above the sole of the foot (resembling man's joints in that respect), whilst the true knee-joint (called " the stifle " in horses) instead of being, as in horses, high up, close against the body, strongly flexed even when at rest, and obscured by the skin is far below the body, free and obvious enough. In fact, the elephant keeps the thigh and the upper arm perpendicular and in line with the lower segment of the limb when he is standing, so that the legs are pillar-like. But he bends the joints amply when in quick movement. The hind legs seen in action resemble, in the proportions of thigh, fore-leg, and foot, and the bending at the knee and ankle, very closely those of a man walking on " all fours." The elephant as known in Europe more than 300 years ago was rarely seen in free movement. He was kept chained up in his stall, resting on his straight, pillar-like legs and their pad-like feet. And with that curious avidity for the marvellous which characterised serious writers in those days to the exclusion of any desire or attempt to ascertain the truth, it was coolly asserted, and then commonly believed, that the elephant could not bend his legs. Shakespeare who, of course, is merely using a common 9 130 ELEPHANTS belief of his time as a chance illustration of human character makes Ulysses say (referring to his own stiffness of carriage) (" Troilus and Cressida," Act II) : " The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy ; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure." An old writer says : " The elephant hath no joints, and, being unable to lye down, it lieth against a tree, which, the hunters observing, do saw almost asunder ; whereon the beast relying by the fall of .the tree falls also down itself, and is able to rise no more." Another old writer (Bartholomew, 1485), says, more correctly : " When the elephant sitteth he bendeth his feet ; he bendeth the hinder legs right as a man." A writer of 120 years later in date (Topsell) says: " In the River Ganges there are blue worms of sixty cubits long having two arms ; these when the elephants come to drink in that river take their trunks in their hands and pull them off. At the sight of a beautiful woman elephants leave off all rage and grow meek and gentle. In Africa there are certain springs of water which, if at any time they dry up, they are opened and recovered again by the teeth of elephants." The blue worm of the Ganges referred to is no doubt the crocodile ; both in India and Africa animals coming to the rivers to drink are seized by lurking crocodiles, who fix their powerful jaws on to the face (snout or muzzle) of the drinking animal and drag it under the water. Thus the fable has arisen of the origin of the elephant's trunk as recounted by Mr. Rudyard Kipling. A young elephant (before the days of trunks), according to this authority, when drinking at a riverside had his moderate and well-shaped snout seized by a crocodile. The little elephant pulled and the crocodile pulled, and by the help of a friendly python the elephant got the best of it. He extricated himself from the jaws of death. But, oh ! what a difference in his appearance ! His snout was drawn out so as to form that wonderful TUSKS USED IN DIGGING 131 elongated thing with two nostrils at the end which we call the elephant's trunk, and was henceforth transmitted (a first-rate example of an " acquired character ") to future generations ! The real origin of the elephant's trunk is (as I will explain later) a different one from that handed down to us in the delightful jungle-book. I do not believe in the hereditary transmission of acquired modifications ! Topsell may or may not be right as to the result produced on elephants by the sight of a beautiful woman. In Africa the experiment would be a difficult one, and even in India inconclusive. Topsell seems, however, to have come across correct information about the digging for water by an African elephant by the use of his great tusks those tusks for the gain of which he is now being rapidly exterminated by man. Serious drought is frequent in Africa, and a cause of death to thousands of animals. African elephants, working in company, are known to have excavated holes in dried-up river beds to the depth of 2 5 ft, in a single night in search of water. It is probable that the Indian elephant's tusk would not be of service in such digging, and it is to be noted that he is rather an inhabi- tant of high ground and table-lands than of tropical plains liable to flood and to drought. The tusk of the Indian elephant has become merely a weapon of attack for the male, and there are even local breeds in which it is absent in the males as well as in the females. The mammoth was a near cousin of the Indian elephant, and inhabited cold uplands and the fringes of sub- Arctic forests, on which he fed. His tusks were very large, and curved first outward and then inward at the tips. They would not have served for heavy digging, and probably were used for forcing a way through the forest and as a protection to the face and trunk. The trunk of the elephant was called " a hand " by old 132 ELEPHANTS writers, and it seems to have acted in the development of the elephant's intelligence in the same way as man's hand has in regard to his mental growth, though in a less degree. The Indian elephant has a single tactile and grasping projection (sometimes called " a finger ") placed above between the two nostrils at the end of the trunk ; the African elephant has one above and one below. I have seen the elephant pick up with this wonderful trunk with equal facility a heavy man and then a threepenny piece. The intelligence of the elephant is sometimes exag- gerated by reports and stories ; sometimes it is not suffi- ciently appreciated. It is not fair to compare the intelligence of the elephant with that of the dog bred and trained by man for thousands of years. So far as one can judge, there is no wild animal, excepting the higher apes, which exhibits so much and such varied intelligence as the elephant. It appears that from early tertiary times (late Eocene) the ancestors of elephants have had large brains, whilst, when we go back so far as this, the ancestors of nearly all other animals had brains a quarter of the size (and even less in proportion to body-size) which their modern representatives have. Probably the early possession of a large brain at a geological period when brains were as a rule small is what has enabled the elephants not only to survive until to-day, but to spread over the whole world (except Australia), and to develop an immense variety and number of individuals throughout the tertiary series in spite of their ungainly size. It is only the yet bigger brain of man which (would it were not so !) is now at last driving this lovable giant, this vast compound of sagacity and strength, out of existence. The elephant like man standing on his hind legs has a wide survey of things around him owing to his height. He can take time to allow of cerebral intervention in his actions since he is so large that he has little cause to be afraid and to hurry. He has a fine and delicate exploring organ in ELEPHANTS USED IN WAR 133 his trunk, with its hand-like termination ; with this he can, and does, experiment and builds up his individual knowledge and experience. Elephants act together in the wild state, aiding one another to uproot trees too large for one to deal with alone. They readily understand and accept the guid- ance of man, and with very small persuasion and teaching execute very dextrous work such as the piling of timber. If man had selected the more intelligent elephants for breeding over a space of a couple of thousand years a prodigy of animal intelligence would have resulted. . But man has never " bred " the elephant at all. The Greeks and Romans knew ivory first, and then became acquainted with the elephant. The island of Elephantina in the Nile was from the earliest times a seat of trade in the ivory tusks of the African elephant, and so acquired its name. Herodotus is the first to mention the elephant itself; Homer only refers to the ivory by the word "elephas." Aristotle in this, as in other matters, is more correct than later writers. He probably received first-hand information about the elephant from Alexander and some of his men after their Indian expedition. The Romans had an unpleasant first personal experience of elephants when Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, landed a number with his army and put the Roman soldiers to flight. But the Romans then, and continually in after-times, showed their cool heads and sound judgment in a certain contempt for elephants as engines of war. They soon learned to dig pits on the battlefield to entrap the great beasts, and they deliberately made for the elephant's trunks, hewing them through with their swords, so that the agonised and maddened creatures turned round and trampled down the troops of their own side. The Romans only used them subsequently to terrify barbaric people, and as features in military processions. But Eastern nations used them extensively in war. In A.D. 217 Antiochus the Great 134 ELEPHANTS brought 2 I 7 elephants in his army against 73 employed by Ptolemy, at what was called "the Battle of the Elephants." The battle commenced by the charging head to head of the opposing elephants and the discharge of arrows, spears and stones by the men in the towers on their backs. An interesting question has been raised as to whether the elephants used by the Carthaginians were the African species or the Indian. There is no doubt that the ele- phants of Pyrrhus and those known to Alexander were the Indian, though they were taken in those days much to the West of India, namely, in Mesopotamia, and it would not have been difficult for the Cathaginians to convey Indian elephants, which had certainly been brought as far as Egypt, along the Mediterranean coast. An unfounded prejudice as to the want of docility of the African elephant has favoured the notion that the Carthaginians used the Indian elephant. As a matter of fact, no one in modern times has tried to train the African elephant, except here and there in a zoological garden. Probably the Indian " mahout," or elephant trainer could, if he were put to it, do as much with an African as he does with an Indian elephant. It would be an interesting experiment. In the next place, there is decisive evidence that it was the African elephant which the Carthaginians used, since we have a Carthaginian coin (Fig. 12) on which is beautifully repre- sented in unmistakable modelling the African elephant, with his large triangular cape-like ears and his sloping forehead. In the time of Hannibal there were stables for over 300 of these elephants at Carthage, and he took fifty with him to the South of France with his army for the Italian invasion. He only got thirty-seven safely over the Rhone, and all but a dozen or so died in the terrible passage of the Alps. After the battle of Trebia he had only eight left, and when he had crossed the Apennines there was only one still alive. On this Hannibal himself rode. GEOLOGICAL STRATA SINGE THE CHALK 135 Since the period when the white chalk which now forms our cliffs and hills was deposited at the bottom of a vast and deep ocean- the sea bottom has been raised, the chalk has emerged and risen on the top of hills to 800 ft. in height in our own islands, and to ten times that height elsewhere, and during that process sands and clays and shelly gravels have been deposited to the thickness of some 2800 ft. by seas and estuaries and lakes, which have come and gone on the face of Europe and of other parts of the world as it has slowly sunk and slowly risen again. The last 200 ft. or so of deposits we call the Pleistocene or Quaternary ; the rest are known as the Tertiary strata. They are only a small part of the total thickness of aqueous deposit of stratified rock which amounts to 60,000 ft. more before the earliest remains of life in the Cambrian beds are reached, whilst older than, and therefore below this, we have another 50,000 ft. of water-made rock which yields no fossils no remains of living things, though living things were certainly there ! Our little layer of Tertiary strata on the top is, however, very important. It took several million years in forming, although it is only one-fortieth of the whole thickness of aqueous deposit on the crust of the earth. We divide it into Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene, and each of these into upper, middle, and lower, the Eocene being the oldest. Our London clay and Woolwich sands are lower Eocene ; there is a good deal of Miocene in Switzerland and Germany, whilst the Pliocene is represented by whole provinces of Italy, parts of central France, and by the White and Red " crags " of Suffolk * It is during this Tertiary period that the mammals the warm-blooded, hairy quadrupeds, which suckle their young * I am inclined to think that the line between Pliocene and Pleistocene or Quaternary ought, in this country, to be drawn between the White and Red Crag of Suffolk. Glacial conditions set in and were recurrent from the commencement of the Red Crag deposit onwards. 136 ELEPHANTS have developed (they had come into existence a good deal earlier), and we find the remains of ancestral forms of the living kinds of cattle, pigs, horses, rhinoceroses, tapirs, elephants, lions, wolves, bears, etc., embedded in the suc- cessive layers of Tertiary deposits. Naturally enough, those most like the present animals are found in late Pliocene, and those which are close to the common ancestors of many of the later kinds are found in the Eocene, whilst we also find, at various levels of the Ter- tiary deposit, remains of side-branches of the mammalian pedigree, which, though including very powerful and remark- able beasts, have left no line of descent to represent them at the present day. We have been able to trace the great modern one-toed horses, zebras, and asses, with their com- plicated pattern of grinding-teeth back by quite gradual steps (represented by the bones and teeth of fossil kinds of horses), to smaller three-toed animals with simpler tuberculated teeth, and even, without any marked break in the series, to a small Eocene animal (not bigger than a spaniel) with four equal-sized toes on its front foot, and three on its hind foot. We know, too, a less direct series of intermediate forms leading beyond this to an animal with five toes on each foot and " typical " teeth. In fact, no one doubts that (leaving aside a few difficult and doubtful cases) all such big existing mammals, as I mentioned above, as well as monkeys and man, are derived from small mammals intermediate in most ways between a hedgehog and a pig which flourished in very early Eocene times, and had five toes on each foot, and " a typical dentition." Even the elephants came from such a small ancestral form. The common notion that the extinct fore-runners of existing animals were much bigger than recent kinds, and even gigantic, is not in accordance \vith fact. Some extinct animals were of very great size especially the great reptiles of the period long before the ANCESTRAL MAMMALS 137 Tertiaries, and before the chalk. But the recent horse, the recent elephant, the giraffe, the lions, bears, and others, are bigger some much bigger than the ancestral forms, to which we can trace them by the wonderfully preserved and wonderfully collected and worked-out fossilised bones dis- covered in the successive layers of the Pliocene, Miocene, FIG. 14. Skeleton of the Indian elephant. Only four toes are visible, the fifth concealed owing to the view from the side. and Eocene strata, leading us as we descend to more primitive, simplified, and smaller ancestors. It is easy to understand the initial character of the foot of the early ancestral mammals. It had five toes. By the suppression or atrophy of first the innermost toe, then of the outermost, you find that mammals may first acquire four toes only, and then only three, and by repeating the I 3 8 ELEPHANTS process the toes may be reduced to two, or right away to one, the original middle toe. There is no special difficulty about tracing back the elephants in so far as this matter is concerned, since they have kept (like man and some other mammals) the full typical complement of five toes on each foot. But I must explain a little more at length what was the " typical dentition," that is to say, the exact number and form of the teeth in each half of the upper and the lower jaw of the early mammalian ancestor of lower Eocene times, or just before. The jaws were drawn out into a snout or muzzle, an elongated, protruding " face," as in a dog or deer or hedgehog, and there were numerous teeth set in a row along the gums of the upper and the lower jaw. The teeth were the same in number, in upper and in lower jaw, and so formed as to work together, those of the lower jaw shutting as a rule just a little in front of the corresponding teeth of the upper jaw. There were above and below, in front, six small chisel-like teeth, which we call " the incisors." At the corner of the mouth above and below on each side flanking these was a corner tooth, or dog-tooth, a little bigger than the incisors, and more pointed and projecting. These we call " the canines," four in all. Then we turn the corner of the mouth-front, as it were, and come to the " grinders," cheek-teeth or molars. These are placed in a row along each half of upper and lower jaw. In our early mammalian ancestor they were seven in number, with broader crowns than the peg-like incisors and canines, the bright polished enamel of the crown being raised up into two, three or four cone-like prominences. The back grinders are broader and bigger than those nearer the dog-tooth. The three hindermost grinders in each half of each jaw are not replaced by " second " teeth, whilst all the other teeth are. Now this typical set of teeth consisting of twenty- TYPICAL OR ANCESTRAL SET OF TEETH 139 eight grinders, four canines, and twelve incisors is not found complete in many mammals at the present day, though it is found more frequently as we go back to earlier strata.* Though some mammals have kept close to the original number, they have developed peculiar shape and qualities in some of the teeth as well as changes in size. The common pig still keeps the typical number (Fig. 15). But he has developed the corner teeth or canines into enormous tusks both in the upper and lower jaw, and the more anterior grinders have become quite minute. The cats (lions and tigers included) have kept the full number of incisors (see figs. 26 and 27, pp. 160, 161) ; they have developed the four canines into enormous and deadly stabbing " fangs," and they have lost all the grinders but three in each half of the lower jaw and four in each half of the upper jaw (twelve instead of twenty-eight), and these have become sharp-edged so as to be scissor-like in their action, instead of crushing or grinding. Man and the old-world monkeys have lost an incisor in each half of each jaw (see Pis. VII and VIII) ; they retain the canines, but have only five molars in each half of each jaw (twenty in all instead of twenty-eight). Most of the mammals whatever change of number and shape has befallen their teeth in adaptation to their different requirements as to the kind of food and mode of getting it have retained a good long pair of jaws and a snout or muzzle consisting of nose, upper jaw, and lower jaw, projecting well in front of the eyes and brain-case. * Mammals having the number and form of teeth which I have just described as typical or such modification of it as can easily be produced by suppression of some teeth and enlargement of others are called Typi- dentata. On the other hind, the whales, the sloths, ant-eaters, and arma- dilloes, as also the Marsupials, are called Variodentata, because we cannot derive their teeth from those of the Typidentate ancestor. They form lines of descent which separated from the other mammals before the Typidentate ancestor of all, except the groups just named, was evolved. 140 ELEPHANTS UPPER LOWER FIG. 15. The teeth in the upper and lower jaw-bone of the common pig drawn from photographs. A and B represent the right half of the lower jaw (A) and the right half of the upper jaw (B) seen in horizontal position. Inc. are the incisors or chisel-like front teeth, three in number, in each half of each jaw and marked i, 2, 3. C marks the canine or dog-tooth, which here grows to be a large tusk. The molars, " grinders," or cheek teeth are marked I to 7. Figs. C and D give a side view of the left halves of the upper (c) and of the lower jaw-bone (D), with the teeth in place. The bone has been partly cut away so as to show the fangs or roots of the teeth, which are double in the molars, and even three-fold in molar No. 7. The explanation of the lettering is the same as that given for figs. A and B. The letter p in Fig. B points to a "foramen " or hole in the upper jaw-bone. These drawings are introduced here as show- PECULIARITIES OF TEETH OF ELEPHANTS 141 Man is remarkable as an exception. In the higher races of men the jaws are shorter than in the lower races, and project but very little beyond the vertical plane of the eyes, whilst the nose projects beyond the lips. Another exception is the elephant. This is most obvious when the prepared bony skull and lower jaw are examined, but can be sufficiently clearly seen in the living animal. The lower jaw and the part of the upper jaw against which it and its grinders play is extraordinarily short and small, The elephant has, in fact, no projecting bony jaw at all, no bony snout, its chin does not project more than that of an old man, and even the part of the upper jaw into which its great tusks are set does not bend forward far from the perpendicular (Fig. 14). The elephant (see Fig. 1 4) has no sign of the six little front teeth (incisors) above and below which we find in the typical dentition and in many living mammals, nor of the corner teeth (dog-teeth, or canines). In the upper jaw in front there is the one huge tusk on each side, and in the lower jaw no front teeth at all ! Then as to the grinders. In the elephant these are enormous, with many transverse ridges on the elongated crown, and so big that there is only room for one at a time in each half of upper and lower jaw. Six of these succeed one another in each half of each jaw, and correspond (though greatly altered) to six of the seven grinders of the typical dentition. Are there amongst older fossil elephants and animals like elephants any which have an intermediate condition of the teeth, connecting the extremely peculiar teeth of the ing the complete number of teeth which the ancestor of pigs, goats, elephants, dogs, tigers, men, and even whales possessed. The re- duction in number and the alteration in the shape of the primitive full set of teeth is referred to in the present chapter on " Elephants," and in those on " Vegetarians and their Teeth " (p. 159), and on " A Strange Extinct Beast " (p. 148). 142 ELEPHANTS modern elephants with the typical dentition such as is approached by the pig, the dog, the tapir, and the hedge- hog ? There are such links. We know a great many elephants from Pleistocene and Pliocene strata some from European localities, more from India, and some from America. A little elephant not more than 3 ft. high when adult is found fossil in the island of Malta ; other species were a little larger than the living African elephant. Whilst the Indian elephant has as many as twenty-four cross-riclges on its biggest grinding tooth (Fig. 13) there FIG. 16. A reconstruction of the extinct American mastodon (Mastodon ohioticus) from a drawing by Prof. Osborne. Other extinct species of mastodon are found in Europe. is a fossil kind which has only six such ridges. But besides true elephants we know from the Pliocene, Miocene, and Upper Eocene of the old world, the remains of elephant-like creatures (some as big as true elephants), which are distinguished by the name " Mastodon" (Fig. 1 6). And, in fact, we are conducted through a series of changes of form by ancient elephant-like creatures which are of older and older date as we pass along the series, and are known as (i) Mastodon, (2) Tetrabelodon, (3) Palaeomastodon, (4) Meritherium, until we come to some- thing approaching the general form of skull and skeleton EXTINCT RELATIVES OF ELEPHANTS 143 and the typical dentition of the early mammalian ancestor. Mastodons of several species are found in Pliocene strata in Europe and Asia ; detached teeth are found in Suffolk. One species actually survived (why, we do not know) in North America into the early human period, and whole skeletons of it are dug out from morasses such as that ot FIGS. 17. A. skull, and B. restored outline of the head of the long- jawed extinct elephant called Tetrabelodon the name referring to its four large tusks two above and two below. " Big-bone Lick." The Mastodons had a longer jaw and face than the elephants, though closely allied to them. They bring one nearer to ordinary mammals in that fact, and also in having (when young) two front teeth or incisors in the lower jaw. Their grinders had the crowns less elongated than those of elephants, and there were 144 ELEPHANTS only five cross-ridges on the biggest and these ridges tend to divide into separate cones (Fig. 13). So here, too, we are approaching the ordinary mammals, of which we may keep the pig and the tapir in mind as samples. But the Mastodons still had the great trunk and huge tusks of the elephants. Next we must look at Tetrabelodon (Fig. 17), and it is this creature which has really revealed the history of the strange metamorphosis by which elephants were produced. The Tetrabelodon is known as " the long-jawed masto- don," because, as was shown in a wonderfully well-preserved skeleton from the Lower Pliocene of the centre of France, set up in the Paris Museum, it had a lower jaw of enormous length, ending in two large horizontally directed teeth (Fig. 17). Instead of a lower jaw a foot long, as in an elephant or in the common kind of mastodon this long-jawed kind had a lower jaw 5ft. or 6ft. long! The tusks of the upper jaw were large, and nearly horizontal in direction, bent downwards a little on each side of the long lower jaw. This lower jaw seemed incompre- hensible, almost a monstrosity until it occurred to me that it exactly corresponds to the elongated upper lip and nose which we call the elephant's trunk and that the trunk of " Tetrabelodon " must have rested on his long lower jaw. In descending to Tetrabelodon we leave behind us the elephants with hanging unsupported trunk ; the lower jaw here is of sufficient length to support the great trunk. When the lower jaw shortened in the later mastodons and elephants the trunk did not shorten too, but remained free and depending, capable of large movement and of grasping with its extremity. Photo- graphs, casts, and actual specimens of the extraordinary skull of the long-jawed mastodon or Tetrabelodon and of the creatures mentioned below may be seen in the Natural History Museum. ANCESTORS OF ELEPHANTS 145 Lastly we have the wonderful series of discoveries made about twelve years ago by Dr. Andrews (of the Natural History Museum) of elephant-like creatures in the upper Eocene of the Fayoum desert in Egypt. Palaeomastodon (the name given by Dr. Andrews to one of them) is a " pig- like " mastodon, with an elongated, bony face, the tusks of moderate size, and the lower jaw not projecting more than a few inches beyond them, so that the proboscis is quite short and rests well on it (Fig. I 8). This animal had six moderate-sized grinders (molars or cheek teeth) on each FIG. 18. Head of the ancestral elephant Palaeomastodon as it appeared in life. It shows, as compared with the earlier ancestor, an elongation both of the snout and the lower jaw. The tusk in the upper jaw has increased in size, but is still small as compared with that of later elephants. (After a drawing by Prof. Osborne.) side of each jaw in position simultaneously, as may be seen in the complete skull shown in Fig 1 9. Of other teeth it had only the two moderate-sized front tusks above and two very big, chisel-like " incisors " in the front of the lower jaw. Exactly how these were used and for what food no one has yet made out. The remains, which finally bring the elephants into line with the ordinary mammals with typical dentition, were discovered also by Dr. Andrews and named " Meri- 10 146 ELEPHANTS therium " by him, signifying " the beast of the Lake Meris." This creature is not bigger than a tapir, and had the shape of head and face which we see in that and the ordinary hoofed animals (Fig. 20). It had no trunk, and whilst it had six small and simplified mastodon-like grinders in each half of each jaw, it had six incisors in the upper jaw and a canine or corner tooth on each side. In FIG. 19. Restored model of the skull and lower jaw of the ancestral elephant Palaeomastodon from the upper Eocene strata of the Fayoum Desert, Egypt. It shows the six molar teeth of the upper and lower jaw (left side), the tusk-like upper incisors and the large chisel-like lower incisors in front. the lower jaw there were only two large incisors besides the cheek-teeth or grinders. Not the least interesting point about Meritherium is that it tells us which of the front upper teeth have become the huge tusks of the later elephants. Counting from the middle line there are in Meritherium three incisors right and three left. The second of these upper teeth on each side is much larger ORIGIN OF THE ELEPHANT'S TRUNK 147 than the others. It is this (seen in Fig. 20) which has grown larger and larger in later descendants of this primitive form and become the elephant's tusk, whilst all the others have disappeared. We now know the complete series of steps connecting elephants with ordinary trunkless, tuskless mammals. The transition from the " beast of Meris " on the one hand to the common typidentate mammalian ancestor, and on the other hand to the elephants, is easy, and FIG. 20. Head of the early ancestor of elephants Meritherium as it appeared in life. Observe the absence of a trunk and the enlarged front tooth in the upper jaw, which is converted in later members of the elephant-stock or line of descent into the great tusk. (After a drawing by Prof. Osborne.) requires no effort of the imagination. His short muzzle (upper and lower jaw), first elongated step by step to a considerable length, giving us Palaeomastodon (Fig. I 8). Then the lower jaw shrunk and became shorter than it was at the start, and the rest of the muzzle (the front part of the upper jaw, carrying with it the nostrils), drooped and became the mobile muscular elephant's trunk! CHAPTER X A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST THE terraces of gravel deposited by existing rivers and the deposits in caverns in the limestone regions of Western Europe the so-called " Pleistocene " strata- contain, besides the flint weapons of man and rare speci- mens of his bones, the remains of animals which are either identical with those living at the present day (though many of them are not living now in Europe) or of animals very closely similar to living species. Thus we find the bones of horses like the wild horse of Mongolia, of the great bull (the Urus of Caesar), of the bison, of deer and goats, of the Siberian big-nosed antelope, of the musk-ox (now living within the Arctic circle), of the wild boar, of the hippopotamus (like that of the Nile), and of lions, hyenas, bears, and wolves. The most noteworthy of the animals like to, but not identical with, any living species are the mammoth, which is very close to the Indian elephant, but has a hairy coat ; the hairy rhinoceros, like, but not quite the same as, the African square-mouthed rhinoceros ; and the great Irish deer, which is like a giant fallow-deer. These three animals are really extinct kinds or species, but are not very far from living kinds. In fact, the most recent geological deposits do not contain any animals so peculiar, when compared with living animals, as to necessitate a wide separation of the fossil animal from living " congeners " by the naturalist who FOSSIL SKELETONS AND JAW-BONES 149 classifies animals and tries to exhibit their degrees of likeness and relationship to one another by the names he adopts for them. The mammoth is a distinct " species " of elephant. It requires, it is true, a " specific " or " second " name of its own ; but it belongs to the genus elephant. Hence we call it Elephas primigenius ; whilst the living Indian elephant is Elephas Indicus. The reader is referred to the preceding chapter for further notes about elephants. The strata next below the Pleistocene gravels and cave deposits are ascribed to the " Pliocene age " older than these are the " Miocene " and the " Eocene," and then you come to the Chalk, a good white landmark separating newer from older strata. We know now in great detail the skeletons and jaws of some hundreds of kinds of extinct animals of very different groups found in the Eocene, the Miocene, the Pliocene, and the Pleistocene layers of clays, sands, and gravels of this part of the world. Nothing very strange or unlike what is now living is found in the Pleistocene the latest deposits but when we go further back strange creatures are discovered, becoming stranger and less like living things as we pass through Pliocene to Miocene, and on downwards in layers, backwards in time to the Eocene. Though the past history of the Mediterranean sea shows that it was formerly not so extensive as it is now, and that there were junctions between Europe and Africa across its waters, yet the deeper parts of that sea are very ancient, and some of the islands have long been isolated. In Malta the remains of extraordinary species of minute elephants have been found, one no larger than a small donkey, and in the island of Cyprus an English lady, Miss Dorothea Bate, has discovered the bones of a pigmy hippopotamus (like that still living in Liberia) no larger than a sheep. Miss Bate some three years A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST ago heard of the existence of a bone-containing deposit of Pleistocene age in lime-stone caverns and fissures in the island of Majorca, and with the true enthusiasm of an explorer determined to carry on some " digging " there and see what might turn up. In the following spring she was there, and obtained a number of bones, jaws, and portions of skulls, which appeared at first sight to be those of a small goat. Its size may be gathered from the fact that FIG. 21. Side-view of the skull and lower jaw of a goat. inc. i. The three lower incisor teeth of the left side. can. i. The little canine tooth grouped with them. p. The toothless front part of the upper jaw. m. s. Upper molars or " grinders." m. i. Lower molars or grinders. Compare this and the following figures with Fig. 15 showing the more complete " dentition " of the pig. its skull is six inches long. These and the bones of a few small finches were all that rewarded her pains. The bones of fossil goats (of living species) are found in caves at Gibraltar and in Spain ; so at first the result seemed dis- appointing. But on carefully clearing out the specimens THE SKULL AND TEETH OF GOATS 151 and examining them in London, Miss Bate found that the supposed goat bones obtained by her in Majorca were Upper JdW. FIG. 22. Horizontal view of the teeth in the lower and upper jaw of the goat. In front of the lower jaw the group of three incisors (inc. i.} and one canine is seen, whilst the toothless bony plate (/.) of the upper jaw, against which they work, is seen in the right-hand half of the figure. The molars, " grinders," or cheek-teeth are numbered i to 6 in each jaw. really those of a new and most extraordinary animal, to which (in a paper published in the ' Geological Magazine ' 152 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST in September, 1910) she has given the name " Myotmgns balearicusT I must ask the reader now to look at the figures here given (Figs. 21 and 22) of the skull and the lower jaw of a goat. The lower jaw might (except for size) pass for that of a sheep, ox, antelope or deer. They are all alike. There are on each side six grinding cheek teeth (molars), and then as we pass to the front we find a long, toothless gap until we come to the middle line where the two halves of the jaw unite. FIG. 23. Side view of the skull of a typical " rodent " mammal, the Coypu rat (Myocastor coypus] from South America, inc. s. Upper incisor, inc. i. Lower incisor, m. s., m. i. Upper and lower molars, grinders or cheek-teeth. There we see a little semicircular group of eight chisel-like teeth, which work against the toothless pad of the upper jaw opposed to them and are tl^e instruments by which these animals, with an upward jerk of the head, " crop " the grass and other herbage on which they feed, to be after- wards triturated by the grinding cheek teeth. A vast series of living and of fossil animals, called the Ruminants including the giraffes, the antler-bearing forms called THE TEETH OF RATS 153 deer, the cavicorn or sheath-horned bovines, ovines and cap- rines, and the large series of antelopes of Africa and India all have precisely this form of jaw, this number and shape and grouping of the teeth. Now let me call to mind the lower jaw of a hare or rabbit or rat (Figs. 23 and 24). Upper Jaw FIG. 24. View in the horizontal plane of the teeth of the left half of the lower and the left half of the upper jaw of the Coypu rat to show the single great gnawing incisor on each side, the four flat grinding molars and the wide gap between molars and incisors. Compare with Figs. 22 and^2y. There we find on each side the group of grinding cheek teeth, with transverse ridges on their crowns, and a long, toothless gap before we arrive at the front teeth. But the front teeth are only two in number, one on each side, 154 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST close to each other, very large, and each with a tremen- dously long, deeply set root. They meet a similar pair of teeth in the upper jaw, and give the hare, rabbit, rats, mice, beavers, and porcupines the power of " gnawing " tough substances. These animals are hence called Rodents, or gnawers, and the two great front teeth are called " rodent- teeth." No arrangement of teeth could be much more unlike than are the group of eight little chisel-like teeth of the lower jaw of the Ruminants and the two enormous gnawing teeth of the Rodents. Apparently the two rodent incisors, or front teeth, of the lower jaw of the rat corre- spond to the two middle incisors of the Ruminant's lower jaw ; the other front teeth of the Ruminant have atrophied, disappeared altogether. The rodent condition has been developed from that of an ancestor which had several front teeth and not two large ones only ; but we have not at present found the intermediate steps. The reader should compare the teeth of the goat and the large rat here pictured with the more typical and complete series of the pig, given in Fig. I 5, p. 140. The pig's teeth are the same in number as those of the ancestral primitive typidentate mammal, and their form is near to that of the ancestor's teeth. Now I come to the extraordinary interest of Miss Bate's goat-like or antelope-like animal from Majorca. Although it is shown by its skull (Fig. 25) and other bones to be distinctly one of the sheath-horned ruminants, very like a small goat or antelope, the lower jaw, of which there are several specimens, does not present in front the little group of eight small chisel-like " cropping " teeth, but, instead, two enormous rodent teeth placed side by side, very deeply fixed in the jaw, and quite like those of some rat-like animals in shape. Hence the name given to this little marvel by Miss Bate "Myotragus," "the rat-goat." This strange little animal also differs from goats and antelopes THE RAT-TOOTHED GOAT 155 in having proportionately much thicker and shorter "feet" (cannon-bones) than they have. If the remains of this strange little creature had turned up in more ancient strata in Pliocene or Miocene it would not have been quite so astonishing. But it would be still very remarkable, since it has all the characters of a goat-like creature in the shape of its skull, its bony horn- cores, its limb-bones, and its cheek-teeth ; and yet, as it FIG. 25. Drawing of the skull of the rat-toothed goat, Myotragus the new extinct beast discovered in limestone fissures in the island of Majorca by Miss Bate. i. Side view of the skull and lower jaw. 2. Appearance of the two rat-like teeth as seen when the end of the lower jaw is viewed from above. were monstrously and in a most disconcerting way, protrudes from its lower jaw two great rats' teeth. Nothing like it or approaching it or suggesting it, is known among recent or fossil Ruminants. They all without exception have a lower jaw with the teeth of the exact number and grouping which you may see in a sheep's lower jaw. We know hundreds of them, both living and fossil, many from the 156 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST Pleistocene, others from Pliocene deposits, and even from the still older Miocene, but all keep to the one pattern of lower jaw and lower jaw teeth. It is only in this little island of Majorca, surrounded by very deep water and not known to have nurtured any other animal so large in size either in recent or geologic times, that we come upon a Ruminant with horns like a goat's, but with great rat-like front teeth in place of the semicircle of eight little cropping toothlets. The wonderful thing is that the bones found by Miss Bate are light and well preserved, evidently not very ancient probably late Pleistocene in age. The questions which arise are : Where did the rat-goat come from ? How did this utterly peculiar change in a Ruminant's teeth come about ? With regard to the second question, it is a matter of importance that although we have hitherto not discovered any Ruminants with this modification of the teeth, still less any cavicorn or sheath- horned Ruminant so altered, yet it is by no means rare amongst herbivorous mammals to find such rat-like teeth making their appearance, whilst the smaller side-teeth of the incisor group or front teeth disappear. The Australian kangafoos and wombats are a case in point so is the lemur-like aye-aye of Madagascar (an insect eater). So is the Hyrax or "damian" of the Cape, and also the very ancient Plagiaulax from the prae-chalk Purbeck clay. But perhaps the best case for comparison with the Ruminants is that of the Rhinoceroses. There are a great many species and even genera of fossil and recent Rhinoceroses. An old Miocene kind (called Hyracodon) has eight little teeth in the front of the lower jaw. In a Pliocene kind of rhinoceros (called R. incisivus) these are reduced to two, the middle two, which are of great size and project far forward like those of the rat-goat of Majorca. Among living rhinoceroses the Indian species have these two front teeth, but smaller, whilst the ORIGIN OF THE RAT-TOOTHED GOAT 157 square-mouthed African rhinoceros has none at all ! This helps us, as a parallel, to understand " the strange case " of Myotragus. But, of course, the rhinoceroses are a distinct line of animal descent remote from Ruminants. They are (like horses and tapirs) odd-toed hoofed-beasts not even-toed ones, as are pigs, camels, and Ruminants. On first considering the question of the origin of the rat-goat of Majorca, some naturalists will, no doubt, be tempted to suggest that it is a case of a sudden " sport," a " mutation " as they now call it, and not a result of gradual slowly developed reduction of the now lost teeth and correspondingly gradual enlargement of the two middle ones, taking many thousand generations to bring about. The fact that the rat-goat is found on an island cut off from competition with other animals will favour this view. On the other hand, there is the important and really remarkable fact that familiar as man has been for ages with Ruminants of many kinds such as sheep, goats, cattle, deer there is absolutely no case on record of an " oddity " or " monstrosity " resembling the rat-goat's con- dition occurring in the teeth of any of the hundreds of thousands of these animals killed and eaten by man, and therefore closely examined. Professor Bateson, who a few years ago ransacked the museums of Europe for instances of " discontinuous variation," or " sports," and wrote a valuable book on the subject, did not discover any example of the kind. Apart from the view, which is very generally held, that such sudden " mutations " as " rat-teeth in a ruminant " are even should they occur not perpetuated, we are not really in any way driven to suppose that the rat-goat of Majorca originated in that island. ' It is true that we know nothing like it in the Pliocene and Miocene of the Mediterranean region which could have been its immediate ancestor. But probably the ancestors of the 158 A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST rat-goat were slowly developed from a Miocene sheath- horned ruminant, a primitive sort of antelope in some part of North-west Africa, or in an extension of it now sub- merged in the Atlantic, and stragglers of this curious and now lost Ruminant stock were left in Majorca when in Miocene or early Pliocene times that island became detached from its Hispano-African connection. CHAPTER XI VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH NO mistake, said Huxley, is more frequently made by- clever people than that of supposing that a cause or an opinion is unsound because the arguments put forward in its favour by its advocates are foolish or erroneous. Some of the arguments put forward in favour of the exclusive use by mankind of a vegetable diet can be shown to be based on misconception and error, and I propose now to mention one or two of these. But I wish to guard against the supposition that I am convinced in consequence that animal substances form the best possible diet for man, or that an exclusively vegetable diet may not, if properly selected, be advantageous for a large majority of mankind. That question, as well as the question of the advantage of a mixed diet of animal and vegetable substances, and the best proportion and quantity of the substances so mixed, must be settled, as also the question as to the harm or good in the habitual use of small quantities of alcohol, by definite careful experiment by competent physiologists, conducted on a scale large enough to give conclusive results. The cogency of the arguments in favour of vegetarianism which I am about to discuss is another matter. In the first place it is very generally asserted by those who advocate a purely vegetable diet that man's teeth are of the shape and pattern which we find in fruit-eating or in root-eating animals allied to him. This is true. The 160 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH warm-blooded hairy quadrupeds which suckle their young and are called " mammals " (for which word perhaps " beasts " is the nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalent) show in different groups and orders a great variety in their teeth. The birds of to-day have no teeth, the reptiles, amphibians, and fishes have usually simple conical or peg-like teeth, which are used simply for holding and tearing. In some cases the pointed pin-like teeth are broadened out so as to FIG. 26. Side view of the skull of a clouded tiger (Felis nebulosa] to show the teeth, inc. 3. The three incisors. can. s. Upper canine, corner-tooth, or dog-tooth, can. i. Lower canine, m. s. The four upper molars or cheek-teeth (called "grinders " in herbi- vorous animals), m. i. The three lower molars or cheek teeth. be button-like, and act as crushing organs for breaking up shell-fish. The mammals alone have a great variety and elaboration of the teeth. In shape and size, as well as in number, the teeth of mammals are very clearly related to the nature of their food in the first place, and secondly to their use as weapons TEETH OF CARNIVORS 161 of attack or of defence. When the surface of the cheek- teeth is broad, with low and numerous tubercles, the food of the animal is of a rather soft substance, which yields to a grinding action. Such substances are fruits, nuts, roots, or leaves, which are " triturated" and mixed with the saliva during the process of mastication. Where the vegetable can.i. FIG. 27. View in the horizontal plane of the teeth of the lower and upper jaw of the same clouded tiger's skull, inc. i. Lower incisors. inc. s. Upper incisors, can. i. and can. s. Lower and upper canine. m. The cheek-teeth three only in the lower jaw, a minute fourth molar present in the upper. food is coarse grass or tree twigs, requiring long and thorough grinding, transverse ridges of enamel are present on the cheek-teeth, as in elephants, cattle, deer, and rabbits (see Figs, i 3, 22, 24). Truly carnivorous animals, which eat the raw carcases of other animals, have a different shape of teeth. Not only do they have large and dagger-like 1 1 162 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH canines or "dog-teeth " as weapons of attack, but the cheek- teeth (very few in number) present a long, sharp-edged ridge running parallel to the length of the jaw, the edges of which in corresponding upper and lower teeth fit and work together like the blades of a pair of scissors. The cats (including the lions, tigers and leopards) have this arrangement in perfection (see Figs. 26 and 27). They cut the bones and muscles of their prey into great lumps with the scissor-like cheek-teeth, and swallow great pieces whole without mastication. Insect-eating mammals have cheek-teeth with three or four sharp-pointed tubercles standing up on the surface. They break the hard-shelled insects and swallow them rapidly. The fish-eating whales have an immense number of peg-like pointed teeth only. These serve as do those of the seals merely to catch and grip the fish, which are swallowed whole. It is quite clear that man's cheek-teeth do not enable him to cut lumps of meat and bone from raw carcases and swallow them whole, nor to grip live fish and swallow them straight off (PI. VII). They are broad, square-surfaced teeth, with four or fewer low rounded tubercles fitted to crush soft food, as are those of monkeys (see Pis. VIII and IX, and their description). And there can be no doubt that man fed originally, like monkeys, on easily crushed fruits, nuts, and roots. He could not eat like a cat. A fundamental mistake has arisen amongst some of the advocates of vegetarianism by the use of the words " carni- vorous " and " flesh-eating " in an ill-defined way. Man has never eaten lumps of raw meat and bone, and no one proposes that he should do so to-day. Man did not take to meat-eating until he had acquired the use of fire, and had learnt to cook the meat before he ate it. He thus separated the bone and intractable sinew from the flesh, which he rendered friable and divisible by thorough grilling, roasting, or baking. To eat meat thus altered, both chemi- MIXED DIETS 163 cally and in texture, is a very different thing from eating the raw carcases of large animals. Man's teeth are thoroughly fitted for the trituration of cooked meat, which is, indeed, as well suited to their mechanical action as are fruits, nuts, and roots. Hence we see that the objection to a meat diet based on the structure of man's teeth does not apply to the use of cooked meat as diet. The use by man of uncooked meat is not proposed or defended. Yet, further, it is well to take notice of the fact that there are many vegetarian wild animals which do not hesitate to cat certain soft animals or animal products when they get the chance. Thus, both monkeys and primitive men will eat grubs and small soft animals, and also the eggs of birds. Whilst the cat tribe, in regard to the chemical action of their digestive juices, are so specialised for eating raw meat that it is practically impossible for them to take vegetable matter as even a small portion of their diet, and whilst, on the other hand, the grass-eating cattle, sheep, goats, antelopes, deer and giraffes are- similarly disqualified from any form of meat-diet, most other land-mammals can be induced, without harm to themselves, to take a mixed diet, even in those cases where they do not naturally seek it. Pigs, on the one hand, and bears, on the other, tend natur- ally to a mixed diet. Many birds, under conditions adverse to the finding of their usual food, will change from vegetable to animal diet, or vice-versa. Sea-gulls normally are fish- eaters, but some will eat biscuit and grain when fish cannot be had. Pigeons have been fed successfully on a meat diet ; so, too, some parrots, and also the familiar barn-door fowl. Many of our smaller birds eat both insects and grain, according to opportunity. Hence it appears impos- sible to base any argument against the use of cooked meat as part of man's diet upon the structure of his teeth, or upon any far-reaching law of Nature which decrees that every animal is absolutely either fitted (internally and 164 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH chemically, as well as in the matter of teeth) for a diet consisting exclusively of vegetable substances, or else is immutably assigned to one consisting exclusively of animal substances. There is no a priori assumption possible against the use as food by man of nutritious matter derived from animal bodies properly prepared. So far as a priori argument has any value in such a matter, it suggests that the most perfect food for any animal that which supplies exactly the constituents needed by the animal in exactly right quantity and smallest bulk is the flesh and blood of another animal of its own species. This is a startling theoretical justification from the purely dietetic point of view of cannibalism. It is, however, of no conclusive value ; the only method which can give us conclusions of any real value in this and similarly complex matters is prolonged, full, well-devised, well-recorded experiment. At the same time, we may just note that the favourite food of a scorpion is the juice of the body of another scorpion, and that the same preference for cannibalism exists in spiders, many insects, fishes, and even higher animals. Another line of argument by which some advocates of vegetarianism appeal to the popular judgment is by representing flesh-food derived from animals as something dirty, foul, and revolting, full of microbic germs, whilst vegetable products are extolled as being clean and sweat free from odour and putrescence and from the scare- monger's microbes. This, I perhaps need hardly say, is a gigantic illusion and misrepresentation. I came across it the other day in a very unreasonable pamphlet on food by the American writer, Mr. Upton Sinclair. Putrefactive microbes attack vegetable foods and produce revolting smells and poisons in them, just as they do in foods of animal origin. It is true that on the whole more varieties of vegetable food can be kept dry and ready for use by DISEASE GERMS IN FOOD 165 softening with hot water than is the case with foods prepared from animals. This is only a question of not keeping food too long or in conditions tending to the access of putrefactive bacteria. It is, on the whole, more usual and necessary, in order to render it palatable, to apply heat to flesh, fish, and fowl than to fruits. And it is by heat heat of the temperature of boiling water applied for ten minutes or more, that poison-producing and infective bacteria are killed and rendered harmless. More people have become infected by deadly parasites and have died from cholera and similar diseases, through having taken the germs of those diseases into their stomachs with raw and over-ripe fruit or uncooked vegetables and the manured products of the kitchen garden, than have suffered from the presence of disease-germs or putrefactive bacteria in well-cooked meat. Here, in fact, " cooking " makes all the difference, just as it does in the matter we were discussing above of the fitness of flesh and bone for trituration by man's teeth. Once we remember that man is not fitted for the " raw meat " diet of the carnivora, but is fitted for the " cooked meat " diet which he has himself discovered alone of all animals we shall get rid of a misleading prejudice in the consideration of the question as to whether civilised men should or should not make cooked meat a portion of their diet, with the purpose of maintaining themselves in as healthy and vigorous a state as possible. Do not let us forget that ancient Palaeolithic cave-men certainly made use of fire to cook their meals of animal flesh, and that probably this use of fire dates back to a still earlier period when, in consequence of this application of the red, running tongues of flame, which he had learned to produce, primitive man was able to leave the warmer climates of the earth and their abundant fruits, and to establish him- self in temperate and even sub-Arctic regions. 166 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH Experiments on a large and decisive scale in regard to the value of the different foods taken by man and the question of the desirability of cooked meat as part of his diet have never been carried out, nor has the use of alcohol been studied by direct experimental method on a large scale. Inasmuch as the feeding of our Army and Navy, of prisoners, lunatics, and paupers, is the business of the State, it is obviously the duty of the Government to inves- tigate this matter and arrive at a decision. It can be done by the Government, and only by the Government. The Army Medical Department is fully capable, and, I am told, desirous, of undertaking this investigation. Five hundred soldiers in barracks would find it no hardship, but an agreeable duty (if rewarded in a suitable way), to submit to various diets, and to comparative tests of the value of such diets. There would be no difficulty in arranging the experimental investigation. Fifty years ago similar work (but not precisely in regard to the questions now raised) was done by the Army Medical Department, under Parkes, with most valuable and widely recognised results. PLATE VII. The series of teeth in the upper (i) and lower jaw (2) of a modern European (natural size). The teeth are placed closely side by side without a gap an arrangement which does not occur in the apes nor in any other living mammal, although it is found in some extinct herbivores the Anoplotherium and the Arsinoitherium. The shape of the arch formed by the row of teeth should be compared with that shown by the same arch in the Gibbon (PL VIII). The crowns of the teeth are very carefully drawn in this figure, which is from a plate published by Professor Selenka. It must be noted that the number of tubercles on the true molars may be in exceptional cases one more or one less than that given in this drawing which gives the most usual number. The word "molar" is often used to include the five cheek teeth on each side of each jaw, but more strictly the anterior bicuspid teeth are called " pre-molars," and the three larger teeth behind them, which have no predecessors or representatives in the first or milk dentition, are called true molars or simply " molars " a rule we have followed here. PLATE VII. m Teeth of the upper jaw of man. inc.2 mc.i. Teeth of the lower iaw of man PLATE VIII. m.3. TT1.2, 2. Teeth of the upper and of the lower jaw of the gibbc EXPLANATION OF PLATES VII AND VIII 167 In both upper and lower jaw we see the four incisors in the middle (Inc. i, Inc. 2) ; on each side of them is the conical crown of a canine a tooth which is greatly enlarged in the ape (see PI. VIII), but is no larger proportionately than it is here even in the most ancient known human jaw, that from the Pleistocene of Heidelberg (see 'Science from an Easy Chair/ Methuen, 1910, p. 405). The two small bicuspid " premolars " and the three large molars follow these on each side in each jaw. The crown of the most anterior (or " first " ) molar of the upper jaw has four cusps, tubercles, or cones on it. It is " quadri-tuberculate." The second and the third molars of the upper jaw have three such prominent tubercles (excluding a row of small tubercles on the hinder margin of the second) ; they are, in fact, tri-tuberculate ; whilst the two hindermost molars of the lower jaw have four tubercles and are called quadri-tuberculate. The first molar (M 1 ) of the lower jaw has in this specimen five tubercles. In 60 per cent, of European lower jaws this is the case. But in 40 per cent, this tooth is quadri-tuberculate (see PI. IX). In Polynesians, Chinese, Melanesians and negroes five tubercles are found on this tooth in 90 per cent, of the jaws examined. The apes are characterised by five tubercles on this tooth, and they are found also on the first lower molars of prehistoric men. Four tubercles only on this tooth is a departure from the ape's condition and is found more frequently in Europeans. It is obvious that these big molar teeth, as well as the two smaller ones in front of them on each side of each jaw, are adapted for breaking up rather soft, pulpy food, and not for cutting lumps of bone or raw flesh, as are the molars of the clouded tiger (identical with those of all species of the genus Felis), shown in Figs. 26 and 27, pp. 160, 161, nor for rubbing grain, grass or herbage to a paste, as are those of the goat (Fig. 22), those of the coypu rat (Fig. 24), and those of the elephants and mastodons (Fig. 13). PLATE VIII. Drawings of (i) the upper and (2) the lower series of teeth of the Gibbon (Hylobates concolor),one of the anthropoid or most man-like apes (enlarged by one third). If these drawings are compared with those in PI. VII, showing man's teeth, the most striking difference seen is that the "arch " or series of teeth is here elongated and squared, not rounded in front, whilst there is plenty of room in both jaws for the last or wisdom tooth, which is not the case in modern races of men, though in the ancient Neander man's jaw and in that from Heidelberg there is ample space for the last molar as in the apes. The next most important difference is that in the gibbon the four canine teeth are very large and tusk-like, and must certainly be of value as weapons of attack which man's are not. Connected with the large size of 168 VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH the canines is the presence of a gap (or "diastema" as it is called) between the four front teeth or incisors of the upper jaw and the upper canine which allows the lower canine to fit in front of the upper canine when the jaw is closed. The number of the tubercles or cones on the molars (the two smaller pre-molars and the three hinder large molars) can be compared in detail in these beautiful drawings from Professor Selenka's work, which are the most careful and perfect which have ever been published. The agreement of these teeth in man and the gibbon is very close : but there are differences. The first, or most anterior premolar of the lower jaw has one predominant cusp or cone ; the second, like both in the upper jaw, is "bicuspid," or bi-tuberculate, as in man. The three big molars of the upper jaw are closely similar to those of man, with some small differences, the second being quadri- tuberculate, whilst in man it is as often tri-tuberculate (as it is in PI. VII) as it is quadri-tuberculate. But the two anterior big molars of the lower jaw are seen to have each five well-marked cones, cusps or tubercles; they are quinqui-tuberculate, whilst in man the first lower molar is often quadri-tuberculate and the second even more frequently so. The last lower molar (wisdom tooth) of the gibbon is like that of man, quadri-tuberculate. The details of the tubercles on these molar teeth distinctly justify the conclusion that they are adapted in the two animals compared- namely, man and the gibbon to food of the same mechanical quality, and this undoubtedly is fruit and nuts. Nevertheless such a form of tooth is equally well adapted to the texture of cooked meat, which has served many races of man for probably hundreds of thousands of years as food. PLATE IX. left left left Eg.l. Kg. 2 Orangoutan (five tubercles) Fig.3 Pig.4 Man (five tubercles) Hg.5. Man (fburtuberd&s) right right FIRST LOWER MOLAR EXPLANATION OF PLATE IX 169 PLATE IX. The figures in this plate are enlarged drawings of the first lower molar (the first or most anterior of the three big molars as dis- tinct from the bicuspid pre-molars) intended especially to show : (i) That the great East Indian ape, the orang-outan, has five tubercles or cones on this tooth, of which three (numbered I, 2, 3) are on the outer side (away from the tongue), as is seen also in the gibbon (PI. VIII) ; further, that though the lower races of man usually show this monkey-like character (figs. 3 and 4) (seen also in the lower jaw drawn in Plate VIII), yet that frequently in Europeans (in as many cases as 40 out of 100 jaws examined) only four tubercles are found on this tooth, as shown- in figs. 5 and 6. It seems that as compared with primitive man and the " lower" existing races of man, Europeans are tending to a reduction in the number of tubercles on the molar teeth as well as to the " crowding out '' or reduction in size and atrophy of the last molar or wisdom-tooth. As compared with the cave-man of the Neander race these differences in the teeth and in the shape and size of the jaw as well as more important differences in the bony skeleton (dis- covered by Prof. Marcelin Boule, of Paris) are sufficient to separate the modern European and the Neander cave-man as distinct species of the genus Homo. The teeth in this plate are magnified to 2\ times the linear dimensions of the actual specimens. Figs i and 2 show the curious " wrinkling " of the enamel surface of the tooth in the orang-outan, which is shown by the other molars also in that ape. The figures are copied from Selenka. CHAPTER XII FOOD AND COOKERY ANIMALS, taking one kind with another, nourish themselves on an immense variety of food. The flesh and the blood of other animals of all kinds, warm or cold, the leaves, twigs, fruits, juices of plants, putrid carcases, hair, feathers, skin, bran, sawdust, the vegetable mould or " humus " of the earth's surface, the sand of the sea, with its minute particles of organic detritus, all serve as food to different kinds of animals. Some are very little fettered in their tastes, and are called " omnivorous," others are bound in the strictest way to a diet consisting of the leaves of some one species of plant or the juices of one species of animal. Some of the latter class, under stress or privation, can accommodate themselves to a new food very different in character and origin from that which is habitual to them ; others have no elasticity in this respect, and must have their exact habitual food- plant or food-animal, unless they are to die of starvation. Man exhibits his great powers of accommodation to changed circumstances in respect of food as well as in other matters. If we are to suppose, as is probable, that our original ape-like ancestors fed exclusively upon fruits and an occasional egg or juicy grub, how vast are the changes in diet to which man has habituated himself! Man is sometimes said to be omnivorous, but this is not a sufficient description of the state of things which has SPECIAL DIET OF VARIOUS RAGES 171 grown up as he has spread over the earth's surface. Every race and even many a small group of men has its accustomed diet, to depart from which is a pain and a difficulty, even though new kinds of food may be gradually accepted and even become popular. Man has in this, as in so many other things, a large range of possible accom- modation, but he has at the same time habits the continuance of which are necessary for the healthy working of the nervous system. The psychical element in the matter of food- habit is important in all higher animals, but most of all in man. The digestive organs are con- trolled by the nervous system, and the brain acts upon the latter in such a way as to favour or to restrain the " appe- tite " and the secretion of the elaborate digestive juices, so that fear, surprise, disgust, and :t nausea " (that strange product of mental and physical reactions) may destroy appetite and inhibit the digestive process. There are vast populations of men who live on rice, or beans, or meal, and never eat animal food, not even milk (after babyhood), nor cheese, and would be, at a first attempt to eat it, " put off" and disgusted by a mutton chop. There are others who subsist almost entirely on fish, others who live on dried beef, others who live on the fat of whales and seals, and would be for a generation or two injured, half starved, and some of them even killed, by a change of diet. Again, there are others who consider that they must have and would be " ill " unless they had the cooked flesh of an ox or sheep as part of their daily food. Let us examine this latter group a little more fully a group to which the nations of Europe belong, with the exception of the Italians, who are essentially a meal-, fruit-, and cheese-eating people. Apparently at a very early time, even before the last glacial period, man had learnt the use of fire, and roasted or grilled the carcases of other animals which he killed 172 FOOD AND COOKERY in the chase, in order to consume them as food. We have no reason to suppose that man ever made use of the raw flesh of higher animals as his habitual diet. His teeth are not, and never were, from his earliest ape-like days, adapted to true carnivorous diet. Cooked meat is not the food of a carnivor, but is an adaptation of the flesh of animals to the requirements of a frugivorous animal. Probably the use of grain and cultivated vegetable food is a later step in human progress than the roasting of meat. The Neander-men, and even the later Reindeer-men (Cromagnards), had no cultivated fields, but lived on roasted meat (of beasts, birds, and fish) and wild fruits. We know how thoroughly the most ancient Greeks enjoyed the long slices of roasted meat cut from the chine, as told in the Homeric poems, and everywhere in Europe after the neolithic or polished-stone period, meat was a main article of diet, in conjuction with the vegetable products of agriculture. In this country, after the Norman conquest, meat-eating was greatly favoured by the impor- tant industry which grew up in hides. The land was well suited for the pasturage of cattle, and owing to the small- ness of the population and the abundance of cattle slaughtered for their hides, meat was almost to be had for the asking. It was thus that Englishmen became great meat-eaters and that "the roast beef of Old England" was established. Later the same superfluity of meat in this case, " mutton " recurred and became general when wool- growing and the manufacture of woollen goods developed into important industries. Relatively to the population there was more " meat" of oxen and sheep in this country than on the continent of Europe, and this disproportion has been maintained. But the increase of population has led to a considerable change in the diet of a very large proportion the poorer part of the community. Whilst the families of the better- FOOD AND HABIT 173 paid working class and all the middle and upper class continue to eat meat, the agricultural labourer and the poorer workmen in towns live chiefly on flour, sugar, bacon, and cheese. Probably they have become habituated to this diet, and, provided that the quantity is sufficient, it cannot be maintained that the diet, in which meat is nearly or altogether absent, is unhealthy. Many vigorous and muscularly well-developed populations in other lands thrive on exclusively vegetable food. A curious and not altogether comforting reflection is that if the inexpensive and simple food of the agricultural labourer is sufficient, the section of the community which spends from five to ten shillings per head a day on a mixed diet of meat, fish, eggs, and vegetables is guilty of waste and excess. Here, however, the remarkable, and, in fact, exceptional domination of " habit " (in the case of man), in regard to both the actual articles of food and the mode of its preparation, has to be recognised. Such and such inexpensive and unskilfully prepared food may contain more than the necessary amount of proteids (that is, matters like flesh, the casein of cheese, and vegetables, and the albumen of eggs), of hydro-carbons (i. e. fats), of carbo- hydrates (i. e., starch and sugar), yet if you were suddenly to compel a man accustomed to well-cooked meat to live on such food he would be unable to assimilate it, his digestive organs would refuse to work, and he would become, if not seriously ill, yet so ill-nourished and sickly that he would be unfit for his work and readily fall a victim to disease. It is, in fact, impossible to lay down any scheme of diet based on the mere provision of the necessary quantities of food materials whilst ignoring the formed habits of the individual and the relation of the psychical conditions which we call " taste," " appetite," "fancy," "disgust," to the actual processes of digestion and the consequent efficiency of the proposed diet. 174 FOOD AND COOKERY No doubt gradually, after a few generations, a whole people may become healthily habituated to a diet which would have been positively injurious to their forebears, and no doubt individuals may be led by fortitude or by necessity in time (perhaps weeks, perhaps years) to acquire a tolerance, or even enjoyment, of food at first repulsive, and therefore injurious. The difficulty in the matter is not that of correctly determining what is physiologically sufficient for the human animal, nor even what would be a healthy diet for a community when once, after a transition period of distress and injury, habituated or " attuned " to that diet. The difficulty is to arrive at a conclusion as to what is really the suitable and reason- able diet for an individual yourself or one like yourself having regard to the lifelong habits of the individual, and the consequent nervous reactions established in him or her in relation to the taste, quality, and mode of pre- sentation of food. Robust people, so long as they get what suits their own uncultivated taste, are apt to make very light of what they call " fancies " about food, and to overlook their real importance. Feeding on the part of civilised man is not the simple procedure which it is with animals, although many animals are particular as to their food and what is called " dainty." The necessity for civilised man of cheerful company at his meal, and for the absence of mental anxiety, is universally recognised, as well as the importance of an inviting appeal to the appetite through the sense of smell and of sight, whilst the injurious effect of the reverse conditions, which may lead to nausea, and even vomiting, is admitted. Even the ceremonial features of the dinner table, the change of clothes before sitting down to the repast, the leisurely yet precise succession of approved and expected dishes, accompanied by pleasant talk and light-hearted companionship, are shown by strict scientific examination NERVOUS CONTROL OF DIGESTION 175 to be important aids to the healthy digestion of food, which need not be large in quantity, although it should be wisely presented. These psychical conditions of healthy feeding are not trivial matters, as we are too apt to suppose. They are part, and a very important part, of the physiology of nutrition, and so deserving of scientific inquiry and of practical attention. They have been made the subject of careful experiment by a Russian physiologist, Pavloff. At a recent meeting of the British Association this matter was brought under discussion in the Physiological Section, and it was pointed out by the author of a very interesting communication that the whole question as to what is and what is not a sound and healthy diet is too often dealt with by writers who ignore the psychical (or shall we say the cerebral ?) factor. Cases were cited of dangerous arrest of the power of digesting, or even of swallowing, food which were cured by giving the patient some appa- rently inappropriate and probably harmful article of food for which he or she had a fancy, such as a grilled salmon- steak, the last thing which would be spontaneously recom- mended by a medical man to a patient who had been suffering for weeks from inability to take food. The willingness is all the assent, the approval of the cerebral centres, and the consequent unlocking of the whole arrested mechanism of digestive secretions and movements. Such a case is only an extreme instance. But it is undoubtedly the fact that just as the sight of so small a thing as a drop of blood, or even the word " blood," will on occasion cause a strong, healthy man to faint, so quite a small excess or defect in the accustomed quality of food will at times arrest the appetite and digestive processes of a healthy man. To many a healthy individual one among many flavours and savours associated with agreeable food is necessary in order that healthy appetite and proper 176 FOOD AND COOKERY digestion may be set going, and the absence of the right flavour and the presence of what is, in his experience, a wrong and disgusting smell or taste in the food set before him, will produce nausea and complete arrest of the diges- tive processes. It is apparently owing to this cause that " tinned meats " have proved to be of little value as rations for an army in campaign, for exploring expeditions, and for remote mining camps. It is not that such tinned meats do not contain the necessary constituents of food, or that they contain poisonous substances, but that they produce a sense of disgust, and arrest the digestive processes. Soldiers, travellers, and miners have assured me that they prefer a dry biscuit and dried, or salted, or sugared meat, to the supposed more " tasty " tinned meats, and that such is the general experience of their comrades. Of similar nature is another very serious trouble, in regard to the healthy feeding of the modern Englishman, which has come upon us in consequence of the quite modern system of huge restaurants, whether in London or in the very large hotels, which are now run in Swiss, Italian and English summer resorts. Hundreds of visitors are " catered for " daily. There is no attempt at anything which deserves the name of cookery. Great monopolists control the supplies, and contract to deliver to these hotels, even in out-of-the-way localities, so much ice-stored, " mousey " fish, " mousey " quails, stringy meat, impossible vegetables, and fruits, gathered from the cheapest markets of Europe and of a quality just not bad enough to cause a revolt among the hotel visitors. The heating of the food is done by patent machinery in ovens and by the use of boiling fat. No cook is in these circumstances possible, with his artistic feeling for the production of a perfect result of skill and taste. A kind of bottled meat-flavoured sauce, manu- WHOLESALE FOOD, MECHANICAL COOKERY 177 factored from spent yeast, is used to make the soups, and is poured, with an equally nauseating result, over the hard veal, the tough chicken, the " mousey " quails, and the tasteless beef and mutton, which are never roasted, but are baked or stewed in boiling fat though shamelessly described as " rotis " in the pretentious and mendacious " menu " placed on the dinner-table. The consequence is that the tourist, who has been overfed at home, eats very little, and his health benefits. But in such an hotel the man who lives carefully when at home, and desires a simple but properly cooked meal, is reduced to a state of indigestion, semi-starvation and misery. The Englishman who is disgusted by the new mechan- ical methods of cookery in the great hotels of Continental " resorts," returns to London, and finds the same atrocious system at work not only in the public restaurants, but in his club. Nowhere in London can you rely on being served with really fresh fish, however highly you may pay for it. Rarely it is fresh, usually it is not. The ice storage people take good care that you shall not obtain fresh fish, and so retain your taste for it. Nowhere at club or restaurant, with rare exceptions, can you obtain meat roasted in the old-fashioned way on a roasting-jack, carefully " basted " during the process, and served when exactly cooked to a turn. There were, only a few years ago, one or two such places surviving both clubs and restaurants where proper roasting was done, but, like the rest, they have now adopted lazy, economical, money- saving methods. Their managers calculate that what they do will serve. It is good enough for the crowd ! So at last you abandon the efforts to obtain decent simple food, in club or hotel, and dine with your friend en famille. The same thing confronts you. The joint has been baked in an oven, of which it smells, and is surrounded by a sickly gravy, produced by pouring hot water over it ! In con- 12 178 FOOD AND COOKERY versation with your hostess, you find that she knows nothing whatever about even the simplest elements of the prepara- tion of food. She tells you she avoids roasting because it necessitates a large fire and an extra expenditure of $ a year on coal, and she also purchases those mouldy, frost- bitten potatoes instead of the best, because they cost half as much as sound ones and she herself does not care for potatoes. They are fattening ! Sometimes at a restaurant or club, served by a foreign " chef," a Yorkshire pudding, as hard as a stale loaf of bread, is handed round in slabs with the so-called " roast " beef. It is not roasted : it is baked beef, and the pudding is an ill-tasting baked mess, also. Nowhere in London in public or private house do I ever see the properly cooked article. True Yorkshire pudding can only be made by placing it under the roasting joint, which drips digestion- promoting essences into the pudding whilst itself rotating, hissing and spluttering as did the joints roasted in the caves long ago by the prehistoric Reindeer men. The scientific importance of good roasting and grilling is that a savour is thereby produced which sets the whole gastric and digestive economy of the man who sniffs it and tastes it, at work. Possibly our successors, a generation or two hence, will have learnt to do without it, and will have acquired as intimate and happy a gastronomic relation to what now are for us the nauseous flavours of super-heated fat (rarely renewed), and of the all-pervading gravy fabri- cated by chemical treatment of yeast, as that which we ourselves have acquired in regard to the old-established and painstaking cookery of the early Victorian and many preceding ages. Medical men who are occupied as specialists with the study of very young children have clearly demonstrated that the implanting of tastes, tendencies and habits in infants of from two to eight years of age has an immense THE BURNT OFFERING OF THE JEWS 179 importance in their subsequent development. Character and capacity are really formed in those early years. Food preferences, no less than mental and moral qualities, are then created. Yet the children of both rich and poor are in these early stages either left to haphazard or entrusted to ignorant nursemaids. For those of us who were not born to the present system the transition to the new methods of wholesale cookery is an abomination, and to escape from them a matter of difficulty. We have to secure an. ancient roasting-jack and a large clear fire in our own kitchen, and to instruct our cook since no woman has taught her what she ought to know in the art of roasting and grilling, in the preparation of Yorkshire pudding, in the mystery of the marrow- bone and the proper and distinct use of garlic, onions, shalots, chives, chervil, tarragon, marjoram, basil, other herbs, and divers peppers, and finally to train her in the supreme accomplishment of the season- ing of a salad. Maybe that the present established relations of our appetites to the time-honoured savours, by which the ancient Jews sought to propitiate the Deity, are destined to be superseded. On the other hand it is quite possible that all the juggling of modern " machine " cookery is a false step, and injurious to digestion and health. It is not unlikely that there is no relish which has so sure a hold on the digestion of European man, no appeal to the cerebral mechanism controlling the liberation of his gastric juices, which is so infallible as that emanating from " well and truly " roasted or grilled meat. It is not easy to account for the present neglect of decent cookery and the triumph of the sham French cookery (for it is not French at all !) which is at present foisted on a long-suffering public. Probably the enor- mously increased number of visitors to foreign resorts and of frequenters of restaurants in London have led to huge i8o FOOD AND COOKERY enterprise in " catering/' and to a monopoly which has driven out of existence the smaller establishments, where alone the artist-cook can flourish. But it seems that the neglect of decent cooking is also due in this country to a racial incapacity and indifference which leads both men and women to despise " taking pains " about small things, and brings them into the world devoid of the desire to carry out with skill those small enterprises on which much of the sweetness and gaiety of life depends. Even in the time of Charles II the skill and seriousness of French cookery as compared with our own was recognised. The high reputation of Scotch cooks at the present day seems to be due to an inheritance of traditions from the days of close association of the Scotch and French Courts. Up to nearly 100 years ago roasting was as usual a method of cooking meat in Paris as in London There were " rotisseries " in Paris in the old days. High prices and thrift have led to the decadence of roasting as a popular method of cooking meat in France, but the great "chef" in a private house in Paris still produces the most perfect roast beef and roast saddle of mutton (better than you will find in England) in the old-fashioned way. So indifferent, or perhaps hopeless, are Englishmen in regard to cookery that they drink a strong champagne through- out dinner, content to drown the insipid taste of the food in the fine flavour of a drink upon which they can rely. An Englishman dining at a first-rate restaurant will usually spend twice as much for wine as for food, whilst a French- man will reverse the proportions. Another difference is one for which women are responsible. In Paris a party of French men and women at a table in a good restaurant enjoy their food, laugh and talk with one another, and do not concern themselves with the company at other tables. It would be bad manners to do so. But English-speaking women, when dining in public, seem to be chiefly interested, WOMEN NEGLECT COOKERY 181 not in their food nor in their own party, but in pointing out to one another the celebrities or notorieties or eccentricities seated at other tables. So long as the place is fashionable and noisy, the food is negligible and neglected. For some reason, which I am unable to discover, the women of England (it is not the case with those of France and Germany) have, with rare exceptions, no interest in or liking for te cookery," and yet the men have left the management of it entirely in their hands. Male "chefs" of English nationality are rare specimens, though they are, as a rule, the best at grilling and roasting. On the other hand, in France, where women no less than men value and understand cookery, there is an enormous body of professional male cooks. Englishwomen of means and education have to such a degree neglected all knowledge of cookery and of the quality and criticism of kitchen supplies, such as meat, fish, birds, and vegetables, that there is no one to teach the poor country girls (who become cooks in the majority of households) the elements of the very difficult and important duties which they are expected in virtue of some kind of inspiration or native genius to discharge with skill and judgment : nor is there any head of a household capable of seeing that the necessary care and trouble are given. It is wonderful, under the circumstances, how clever and willing our domestic cooks are. A considerable section of English middle-class women at the present day are allowed by the men, who should guide them so as to make them honourable and useful members of the community, to grow up in complete ignorance of the essential parts of the art of cookery. This was not the case a hundred years ago. Now a large proportion of them have been led by bad example and foolish notions to give up such matters to " the servants," whether they are able to afford competent servants or even 182 FOOD AND COOKERY to judge of the competence of a servant or not. Many of these " mistresses " now devote themselves exclusively to "dress," "amusements," "charity," "politics," and dabbling inconsequentry in various crazes. They are not to blame. It is the men who are to blame who deliberately neglect to give to their womankind a training and education which shall make them real mistresses of household arts and business, so .that they may be thus filled with the happy conviction (which is the one thing they most desire and most often cannot gain) that they are of real use are really wanted in the world. In conclusion, let me tell of a great German sportsman, Major von Wissman, Governor of German East Africa, now no more, who came to see me at the Museum nine years ago. It was his first visit to London, and I took him to lunch at a famous grill-room. Happily, though roasting is dying out, the art of grilling still survives in this country, but nowhere else in Europe. Von Wissman said " Can I have beer where we are going?" "Yes, certainly," I said. "German beer? "'he asked. "No," I replied. "Something much better." When we were seated, I ordered a pint tankard of Reid's London stout for my friend. It was in perfect condition. He put his lips to it in doubt, but did not remove them until, with reverential drooping of the eyelids, he had emptied the tankard. " The very finest beer I have ever swallowed," he said. " What in the name of goodness is it?" I told him, and ordered him more. Soon a perfectly grilled chop and a large, clean, floury potato were before him. He proceeded to eat, and was really and unaffectedly astonished. " But this is marvellous," he said "wonderful! enchanting! I have never really tasted meat before in my life. Reitzend! Colossal!" He had a steak to follow, and I was pleased to have been able to show him something which I knew (by experience of that city) they could not produce in Berlin. Three A GREAT GERMAN'S APPRECIATION 183 days later I went over to the same hospitable grill-room for a chop, and told the gifted grill-cook (the French, in former centuries, had a proverb, " Anyone may learn to be a cook, but one must be born a ' rotisseur ' ") of the admiration he had excited in the Emperor William's friend. " Yes, sir," he said, " I fancy he did like it, for he came here by himself yesterday and the day before, and took the same grills and stout." Von Wissman was staying at the German Embassy, but was drawn all the way to South Kensington by the sweet savour of the grill- room an instance of what the physiologists call "positive chemotaxis." What I have here written on food and cookery is no " gourmet's " praise of indulgence in the pleasures of the table, nor is it an expression of a mere personal preference. It is a protest, based on scientific grounds, against the neglect of one of the bulwarks of health the honest traditional cookery which flourished in London forty years airo. CHAPTER XIII SMELLS AND PERFUMES THE old saying, " De gustibus non disputandum" is based upon the fact that both the liking and the repulsion evinced by human beings for different odours (including those odours which we call flavours) are not matters of general agreement. Thus the smells of garlic and of onions, and even of assafcetida, are to many men among the most attractive and appetising in existence to very many they are, on the other hand, repulsive. High game, a certain kind of putrid fish (" Bombay ducks "), and again rotten cheese are attractive to many men and offensive to as many more. Many animals revel in the smell and flavour of carrion, and even of manure, which they devour. There are well-known flowers which attract insects, not by the possession of the sweet perfumes appreciated and extracted by mankind, but by a smell like that of putrid meat, which so far misleads blue-bottle flies as to cause them to lay their eggs on the reeking blossom. So diverse are the tastes of men and animals in these matters that it is remarkable when we find agreement among them, as, for instance, in the attraction for butterflies of those delicate scents which also are agreeable to ourselves in such flowers as the rose, the jasmine, the heliotrope and the honeysuckle. There seems to be no rule or principle at work by which smells can be definitely classed as either pleasant or SMELLS AND MEMORY 185 unpleasant. Even perfumes carried by some of the in- habitants of Western Europe with the intention of making themselves attractive to their fellow-citizens are often repulsive to a certain proportion of those who come near them, as, for instance, is the case with the extract of the East Indian herb " patchouli." In regard to our other senses there is a general agreement amongst mankind, which extends also to all animals, as to what is agreeable and what is disagreeable. There are definite mathematical laws as to harmony and melody in sound and colour which affect animals and ourselves to a large extent similarly. Sweets are agreeable and bitters are disagreeable, though it is the fact that the snail, which loves sugar, recoils from saccharine, and there are " mites " (A can) which feed with avidity on bitter strychnine ! Excess of heat and of cold is disliked by animals and all men, whilst the sense of touch is pleasurably or painfully affected in much the same way in most men and animals, more than is the case with regard to any other of the senses. The sense of smell depends upon immediate and personal experience of "asso- ciation " for the determination of pleasure or pain, attrac- tion or repulsion, as the result of its being called into operation. It is a very general experience that odours are more efficient in arousing memory than are mere colour effects or sounds. Not only in animals with acutely developed olfactory powers, but also in man, an odour a peculiar perfume will start a whole chain of reminiscence when sight and sound have failed to do so. It is due to this close association with memory (conscious or uncon- scious) that an odour is agreeable or disagreeable. In itself an odour is neither attractive nor repulsive. The acrid fumes of sulphur, chlorine, ammonia, and such bodies are not simply " odours " but corrosive chemical vapours, which act painfully upon the nerves of common sensation within the air-passages of the nose and throat 186 SMELLS AND PERFUMES and not exclusively, if at all, on the terminations of the olfactory nerves. An odour that which acts on the special nerves of smell distributed in chambers of the nose acquires its attractive or its repulsive quality only as the result of mental association with what is beneficial (suitable food, mates, friends, safety, home, the nest), or with what is injurious (unsuitable food, poison, enemies, danger, strange surroundings, solitude). Hence it is intelligible that the man accustomed to garlic or onions in his food is strongly attracted by their smell. So too the man whose tribe or companions have learnt by necessity to eat slightly putrid meat, fish, and cheese is attracted by their odour, though for others these odours are associated rather with what is poisonous and injurious. The dislike of the smell of sewer-gas and foul accumulations of refuse was not known to former generations of men (even in European cities a couple of hundred years ago) any more than it is to-day to the more unfortunate poorer classes, to many modern savages, to hyenas, and several other animals and birds which inhabit lairs and caves which they make foul. The odour of putrescence has become actually painful and almost intolerable to the more cleanly classes of mankind, owing to the association with it, as the result of education, of fear of disease and poisoning. Either conscious or unconscious association of an odour with what is held, either as the result of tradition or through personal expe- rience, to be beneficial and of pleasant memory, or, on the contrary, injurious and of painful connection, determines man's liking for, and choice or rejection of, odours and flavours. One can account with fair success on this basis for one's own preferences and dislikes in the matter. On the other hand, odours exist in vast variety amongst plants and animals which have not acquired any special association or significance. We find that some organisms produce as a result of their chemical life material which ACCIDENTAL QUALITIES 187 oxidises and gives out light and so these organisms are " phosphorescent " without any consequence, good or bad, to themselves. And then we come upon others (as, for instance, the glow-worms and fire-flies) which have made use of this " accidental " quality, and produce phosphores- cent light in special organs so as to attract the opposite sex. Again, we find that the red-coloured oxygen-seizing crystalline substance haemoglobin exists in the blood of a vast number of animals, and might as well be green or colourless for all the good its colour does them. Yet here and there the splendid red colour which this chemical gives to the blood becomes of great importance as a "decora- tion," or "sex-ornament." The comb of the domestic fowl, the wattles of the turkey, but above all the supreme beauty of the human race the cherry-red lips and the crimson- blushing cheek of healthy youth owe their wonderful colour to the red blood which flows through them. So at last the redness of the oxygen-carrier is turned to account. So it must be also with odorous substances. Many have been called into existence, but few have been chosen in the long course of animal evolution and selected as the impor- tant means of repulsion or attraction. There are odorous substances attached to many of the lower animals which seem to have no significance, but just happen to be the result of necessary chemical changes, not aimed (so to speak) at their production. Of course, it is very difficult to form a certain and definite conclusion as as to their uselessness as odours. For instance, nearly all the sponges when fresh and filled with living protoplasm have a curious smell which reminds one of that given off by a stick of phosphorus. Marine sponges have it, and so has the beautiful green or flesh- coloured river sponge (common on the wood of rafts and weirs in the Thames). A rather uncommon marine worm, called Balanoglossus, or the acorn worm, has a very i88 SMELLS AND PERFUMES strong and unpleasant smell like that of iodoform. In neither case is the nature of the odorous body known, nor its use to the animal suggested. Smelts smell like cucumbers : the green-bone fish and the mackerel smell alike. One of the common earth-worms has a strong aromatic smell, and the common snail, as well as the sea- hare and one of the cuttlefishes (Eledone), smells like musk. Musk itself is produced, as a scent attracting the opposite sex, by several animals musk-deer, musk- sheep, musk-rats. I am not now attempting to enumerate the well-recognised odours of animals such as are extracted from them by man in order to " opsonise " himself, but am pointing to the more obscure cases. There is not a very great or marked variety in the odours of fishes ; but reptiles with their dry, oily skins give off various aromatic smells, none of which are valued by man. Toads have distinct odours, and one kind (JPelobates ftiscus, or the heel-clawed toad), common in Europe, but not British, is known locally as the garlic toad on account of its smell. There are amongst carnivorous mammals various smells allied to that of civet which are not so agreeable to man as that substance ; for instance, the odour of the fox and of the badger, and yet more celebrated, the terrible, awe- inspiring smell of the fluid emitted in self-defence by the skunk from a sac in the hinder part of the body. Horses, cows, goats, sheep, and the giraffe have their distinctive odours. Many of the herbivorous animals secrete a colour- less fluid from large glands opening on or near the feet, and also from a gland in front of the eye (similar glands occur in other strange positions), which has not a smell familiar to man that is to say, not one which has been recognised and described yet seems to be readily " smelt " by the animals of its own kind. The bats especially the large frugivorous bats have a very unpleasant, frowsy smell. BACTERIA AND SMELLS 189 An important fact about animal smells is that many which we might be inclined to attribute to the animal which diffuses them, are really due to the fermentative or putrefactive action of bacteria which swarm on the skin and in the intestines of animals. It is often difficult to decide how far a peculiar animal odour is due directly to a substance secreted by the animal, and how far the odour of that substance is modified or even entirely produced by the chemical changes set up in secretions of the body- surface by. bacteria. Several distinct repulsive smells liable to occur on the human body are due to want of cleanliness in destroying bacteria by proper antiseptics. The fatty and waxy secretions of the skin are often decomposed by bacteria, even before complete extrusion from the glands in which they are formed, whilst the decomposition of food in the mouth and intestines by bacteria alters materially both the natural odour of the animal's breath and the smell of the intestinal con- tents. In young and healthy animals in natural conditions there is some check it is not easy to say what upon the putrefactive activities of the omnipresent bacteria. The skin of a healthy young animal has a pleasant odour, and its breath (notably in the case of the cow and the giraffe) is naturally sweet-smelling. The same should be the case, under perfectly healthy conditions, with human beings. There is one important cause of animal odours and flavours upon which I have not hitherto touched. Many animals acquire an odour or flavour directly from the food upon which they feed. Certain odorous bodies are in the food and are taken up into the blood of the consuming animal unchanged, and are then thrown out by secreting glands on the skin. This is the case with the odorous substance of onions. People do not smell of onions after they have eaten them in conseqence of particles of onion i go SMELLS AND PERFUMES remaining in the mouth. The volatile odoriferous matter of the onion is absorbed into the blood. It passes out first through the lungs and later through the small fat-forming glands in the skin. It is difficult to ascertain how far animals derive their odours in this way in a complete state from their food, and how far they chemically construct them afresh by their own activity. No doubt both processes occur ; but in plants the odorous bodies are built up entirely by the chemical action of the plant itself upon simple salts of carbonic acid, ammonia and nitrates. Animals can certainly take highly elaborated chemical bodies into their digestive organs without destroying them and absorb them unchanged into the blood and deposit them in the tissues. Thus the canary is made to take up the red colour of cayenne pepper and deposit it in the feathers. Thus the green oysters of Marennes acquire their colour from minute blue plants (diatoms) on which they feed. And thus, too, the canvas-backed ducks of the United States take into their tissues the odorous matter of celery, and our own grouse the flavour of heather, whilst fish-eating birds and whales in this way acquire a fishy taste. So, too, the flounders and the eels of the Thames, and even salmon in muddy rivers, acquire a taste like the smell of river mud. It is probable that many of the odours of animals (but by no means all) are thus derived directly from their food, or are produced by very slight changes of the odorous bodies absorbed in food. Mutton and beef owe their savour in some degree to the scents of the grasses on which sheep and oxen feed. And it is not im- probable that the sheep-like smell which the Chinese detect in the European, comes to the latter direct from his general use of the sheep as food. Plants are the great chemical manufacturers in the world of life, and second to them come our human industrial and scientific chemists. And though we must claim for animals SOME REMARKABLE SMELLS 191 some power of manufacturing distinct odorous bodies from inodorous nutritive matter assimilated by them, it is probable that in many cases the odour which is characteristic of an animal is derived by no very complicated change from odorous bodies existing in its habitual food. A curious case of a substance valued as perfume by civilised man, and yet coming from a source whence sweet odours would hardly be expected, is that which is known as " ambergris," or " ambre gris " (grey amber). It is still used in the manufacture of esteemed perfumes, and is sold at five guineas the ounce. It is found floating on the surface of the ocean, and is a concretion of imperfectly digested matter from the intestine of a whale probably the sperm-whale. It is a grey, powdery substance, and in it are embedded innumerable fragments of the horny beaks and sucker-rings of cuttle-fishes creatures which form the chief food of the sperm-whale and other toothed whales. I have already mentioned above that one of our common cuttle-fishes (the Eledone moschata) has a strong odour of musk and it is possible that ambergris owes its perfume to the musk-like scent of the cuttle-fish eaten by the whale in whose intestine it is formed. Another " smell " which is extremely mysterious is that produced by two quartz- pebbles, or even two rock-crystals, or two pebbles of flint or of corundum, when rubbed one against the other. A flash of light is seen, and this is accompanied by a very distinct smell, like that given out by burning cotton-wool. It is demonstrated by careful chemical cleaning before the experiment that this is not due to the presence of any organic matter on or in the stones or crystals used. It seems to be an exception to the rule that " odours " (as distinct from pungent vapours or gases) are only produced by substances formed by plants or animals. Perhaps that is not so completely a rule as I was inclined to think. It is true that one can distinguish ig 2 SMELLS AND PERFUMES the " smells " of chlorine, of bromine, and of iodine from one another. And there are statements current as to the distinctive smells of metals though they may possibly be due to the action of the metals on organic matter. In any case it seems, according to our present knowledge, that the smell given out by the rubbing of pieces of silica (quartz, flint, etc.) is due to particles of silica (oxide of silicon) volatilised by the heat of friction, which are capable of acting specifically on the olfactory sense-organ. CHAPTER XIV KISSES " Among thy fancies, tell me this, What is the thing we call a kiss ? I shall resolve ye what it is." ROBERT HERRICK. KISSING is an extremely ancient habit of mankind, coming to us from far beyond the range of history, and undoubtedly practised by the remote animal-like ancestors of the human race. Poets have exalted it, and in these hygienic days doctors have condemned it. In the United States they have even proposed to forbid it by law, on the ground that disease germs may be (and undeniably are in some cases) conveyed by it from one individual to another. But it is too deep-rooted in human nature, and has a sig- nificance and origin too closely associated with human well-being in the past, and even in the present, to permit of its being altogether " tabooed " by medical authority. There are two kinds of " kissing " practised by mankind at the present time one takes the form of " nose-rubbing " each kiss-giver rubbing his nose against that of the other. The second kind, which is that familiar to us in Europe, consists in pressing the lips against the lips, skin, or hair of another individual, and making a short, quick inspiration, resulting in a more or less audible sound. Both kinds are really of the nature of " sniffing," the 13 i 9 4 KISSES active effort to smell or explore by the olfactory sense. The " nose-kiss " exists in races so far apart from one another as the Maoris of New Zealand and the Esquimaux of the Arctic regions. It is the habit of the Chinese, of the Malays, and other Asiatic races. The only Europeans who practise it are the Laplanders. The lip-kiss is dis- tinguished by some authorities as " the salute by taste " from nose-rubbing, which is " the salute by smell." The word " kiss " is connected by Skeat with the Latin " gustus," taste ; both words signify essentially " choice." But it would be a mistake to regard the lip-kiss as merely an effort to taste in the strict sense, since the act of inspira- tion accompanying it brings the olfactory passages of the nose into play. Lip-kissing is frequently mentioned in the most ancient Hebrew books of the Bible, and it was also the method of affectionate salutation among the Ancient Greeks. Primarily both kinds of kissing were, there can be no doubt, an act of exploration, discrimination, and recognition dependent on the sense of smell. The more primitive character of the kiss is retained by the lovers' kiss, the mother's kissing and sniffing of her babe, and by the kiss of salutation to a friend returning from or setting out on a distant journey. Identification and memorising by the sense of smell is the remote origin and explanation of those kisses. The kissing of one another by grown-up men as a salutation was abandoned in this country as late as the eighteenth century. " Tis not the fashion here," says a London gentleman to his country-bred friend in Congreve's ' Way of the World.' But we have, most of us, witnessed it abroad, and perhaps been unexpectedly subjected to the process, as I once was by an affectionate scientific colleague. Independently of the more ordinary practice of kissing there is the " ceremonial kiss " the kissing of hands, or of feet and toes, which still survives in Court functions whilst the Viennese and the Spaniards, KISSING AND SMELLING 195 though they no longer actually carry out their threat, habitually startle a foreigner by exclaiming "I kiss your hands." The Russian Sclavs are the most profuse and indiscriminate of European peoples in their kissing. I have seen a Russian gentleman about to depart on a journey " devoured " by the kisses of his relations and household retainers, male and female. Among the poor in rural districts in Russia this excessive habit of kissing leads to the propagation of the most terrible ulcerative disease among innocent people as related by Metchnikoff in the lectures on modern hygiene which he gave in London some seven or eight years ago (published by Heinemann). We may take it, then, that the act of kissing is primarily and in its remote origin an exploration by the sense of smell, which has either lost its original significance, and become ceremonial, or has, even though still appealing to the sense of smell, ceased to be (if, indeed, it ever was so) consciously and deliberately an exercise of that sense. This leads us to the very interesting subject of the sense of smell in man and in other animals. There is no doubt that the sense of smell is not so acute in man as it is in many of the higher animals, and even in some of the lower forms, such as insects. It is the fact that so far as we can trace its existence and function in animals, the sense of smell is of prime importance as distinguishing odours which are associated either with objects or condi- tions favourable to the individual and its race, or, on the other hand, hostile and injurious to it. It never reaches such an extended development as a source of information or general relation of the individual to its surroundings as do the senses of sight, hearing and touch. It depends for its utility on the existence of odorous bodies which are not very widely present, and are far from universal accom- paniments of natural objects. Apart from some pungent mineral gases, all odorous bodies are of organic origin. 196 KISSES Even as recognised by the less acute olfactory sense of man, the number and variety of agreeable and of dis- agreeable scents, produced by various species of animals and plants, is very considerable. But there is no doubt that the number and variety discriminated by such animals as dogs and many of the other hairy, warm-blooded beasts is far greater. The nature of the particles given off by odorous bodies which act on the nerve-endings of the organs of smell of animals, is remarkable. They are vola- tile ; that is to say, they are thrown off from their source and float in the air in a state of extreme subdivision. Unlike the particles which act upon the nerves of taste, they are not necessarily soluble in water, and though often spread through and carried by liquids, are in fact rarely dissolved in water. The dissolved particles which act upon the nerves of taste can be distinguished by man into four groups sweet, sour, bitter, and saline. But no such classification of " smells " is possible. As a rule mankind confuses the " taste " of things with their accompanying " smell." The finer flavours of food and drink not included in the four classes of tastes are really due to odoriferous particles present in the food or drink, which act on the terminations of the olfactory nerves in the recesses of the nose, and excite no sensation through the nerves of taste. The part of the brain from which the nerves of smell arise is of relatively enormous size in the lower vertebrates as much as one fifth of the volume of the entire brain in fishes a fact which seems to indicate great importance for the sense of smell in those forms. Even in the mammals (the hairy, warm-blooded, young-suckling beasts) the size of the olfactory lobes of the brain and of the olfactory nerves, and the labyrinthine chambers of the nose on which the nerves are spread, is very large, as one may see by looking -at a mammal's skull divided into right and left VARIATIONS IN THE SENSE OF SMELL 197 halves. And it seems immoderately large to us to man because, after all, so far as our conscious lives are con- cerned, the sense of smell has very small importance. Yet man has a very considerable set of olfactive chambers within the nostrils and has large olfactory nerves. Not rarely men and women are found who are absolutely devoid of the sense of smell, and the same thing occurs with domesticated cats and dogs. In these cases the olfactory lobes of the brain are imperfectly developed. It is found that men in this condition suffer but little inconvenience in consequence. We are able, through their statements, to ascertain what parts of the savoury qualities of food and drink belong to taste and what to smell. Such individuals do not perceive perfumes, the bouquet of wine, or the fragrance of tobacco, nor can they appreciate the artistic efforts of a good cook. "But they are spared the pain of foul smells, and possibly in this way they may incur some danger in civilised life through not being able to detect the escape of sewer-gas or of coal-gas into a house, or the putrid condition of ice-stored fish, birds, and meat. A friend of my own, who is devoid of the sense of smell, in- herited this defect from his father, and has transmitted it to some of his children. I was surprised to find in con- versing with him how often I alluded to smells, either pleasant or unpleasant, when (as we had agreed he should) he would interrupt me and say that my remark had no meaning for him. Some have a far more acute sense of smell than others, and again some men, probably without being more acutely endowed in that way, pay more attention to smells, and use the memory of them in description and conversation. Guy de Maupassant is remarkable as a writer for his abundant introduction of references to agreeable and mysterious perfumes, and also to repulsive odours. But some men certainly have an exceptionally acute sense of ig8 KISSES smell, and can, on entering an empty room, recognise that such and such a person has been there by the faint traces not of perfumery carried by the visitor but of his individual smell or odour. This brings us to one of the most important facts about odorous bodies and the sense of smell, namely, that not only do the various species of animals (and plants) each have their own odour often difficult or impossible for man, with his aborted olfactory powers, to distinguish but that every individual has its own special odour. As to how far this can be considered a universal disposition is doubtful. It is probable that the power of discriminating such individual odours is limited (even in the case of dogs, where it is sometimes very highly developed), to a power of discriminating the distinctive smells of the individuals of certain species of animals, and not of every individual of every species. Everyone knows of the wonderful power of the bloodhound in tracking an individual man by his smell, but dogs of other breeds also often possess what seem to us extraordinary powers of the kind. On a pebbly beach I pick up one smooth flint pebble as big as a walnut. It is closely similar to thou- sands of others lying there. I hold it in my hand without letting my fox-terrier see it, and then I throw it. It drops some eighty yards off among the other pebbles, and I could not myself find it again. But the dog runs forward, notes vaguely by ear and by eye the spot where it strikes, and then commences a systematic circling within about ten yards of the spot. In half a minute he pounces with the utmost assurance on to one selected stone, and brings it to me. It is invariably the stone which had been in my hand, unseen by the dog, thrown by me, and detected by the smell I have communicated to it. Not only is the discrimination of individuals by the sense of smell a very astonishing thing, but so also is the obvious fact that the total amount of odoriferous matter which is RADIATION AND ODOURS 199 sufficient to give a definite and discriminative sensation through the organ of smell is of a minuteness beyond all cal- culation or conception. These two facts the almost infinite individual diversity of smell and the almost infinite minute- ness of the particles exciting it render it very difficult to form a satisfactory conclusion as to the nature of those particles. It has been from time to time suggested that the end-organs of the olfactory nerves may be excited, not by chemically active particles, but by " rays," olfactive undula- tions comparable to those of light. Physicists have not yet been able to deal with the problem, but the recent discoveries and theories as to radio-active bodies such as radium may possibly lead to some more plausible theory as to the diffusion and minuteness of odorous particles than any which has yet been formulated. An example of the minuteness of odoriferous particles is afforded by a piece of musk which for ten years in succession has given off into the changing air of an ordinary room " particles " causing a readily recognised smell of musk, and yet is found at the end of that time to have lost no weight, that is to say, no weight which can be appreciated by the finest chemical balance. An analogy (I say only an analogy, a resemblance) to this is furnished by a pinch of the salt know as radium chloride, no bigger than a rape-seed, and enclosed in a glass tube, which will continue for months and years to emit penetrating particles producing continu- ously without cessation most obvious luminous and electrical effects upon distant objects, the particles being so minute that no loss of weight can be detected in the pinch of salt from which they are given off. The sense of smell is of service to animals (1) In avoiding enemies and noxious things. (2) In tracing and following and discriminating prey or other food. (3) In recognising members of their own species and 200 KISSES individuals of their own herd or troop, and in finding their own young and their own nests. (4) In seeking individuals of the opposite sex at the breeding season. It is in connection with the last of these services that we come across some of the most curious observations as to the production and perception of odorous particles. Butterflies and moths and some other insects have olfactory organs in the ends of the antennae and the " palps " about the mouth. The perfumes of flowers have been developed so as to attract insects by the sense of smell, as their colours also have been developed to attract insects by the eye. The insects serve the flowers by carrying the fertilising pollen from one flower to another, and thus promoting cross-fertilisation among separate individual plants of the same species. But probably concurrently with this has grown up the production of perfume by the scales on the wings of moths and butterflies perfumes which have the most powerful attraction for the opposite sex of the same species. Curiously enough (for these perfumes might very well exist without being detected by man) some of the per- fumes produced by butterflies are " smellable " by man. That of the green-veined white is described as resembling the agreeable odour of the lemon verbena. It is produced by certain scales on the front border of the hinder wings of the male insects, and not at all by the females, who are, however, attracted by it, and flutter around the sweet- smelling male. Other male butterflies produce a scent like that of sweet briar, others like honeysuckle, others like jasmine, and so attract the females. Other butterflies are known which produce repulsive odours, and so protect themselves from being eaten by birds and lizards. Again, there are moths (for instance, the emperor moth, Saturnia), the females of which produce a perfume which attracts the males, and is of far-reaching power. The French ento- ATTRACTION BY SMELL 201 mologist Fabre placed one of these female moths in a box covered with net-gauze, and left it in a room with open window, facing the countryside. In less than an hour the room was full of male emperor moths more than a hundred arrived, although none had been previously visible in the neighbourhood. They crowded over the box, and even afterwards, when the female moth had been removed, the perfume remained in the box, and the male moths eagerly sought it. The perfume must have carried far from the room where the female was, out into the woods where it was perceived, and followed up to its source by the male moths. Such perfumes are very generally produced by little pockets or glands in the skin, the secretion having, in the case of insects, birds and mammals, an oily nature. In mammals they are largely produced by both males and females, and serve to attract the sexes to one another. Hairs are situated close to the minute odoriferous glands and serve an important part in accumulating and diffusing the characteristic perfume. Musk and civet are of this nature, and it is a significant fact that these substances are used as perfumes by human beings. It would seem as though mankind had lost either the power of satisfactorily perceiving the perfumes naturally produced by the human skin, or that the production of such perfumes had for some reason diminished. Either condition would account for the use by mankind of the perfumes of other animals and of flowers. There are a variety of odorous substances produced by different parts of the human body, of which some are agreeable and others disagreeable. One of the most curious facts in regard to odorous bodies is the close resemblance between agreeable and repulsive odours, and the readiness with which the judgment of human beings may pronounce the same odour agreeable at one period or place, and disagreeable at another. There also seems to be 202 KISSES a " dulling " of the power to perceive an odour which is a consequence of constant exposure to that odour. Thus the Chinese say that Europeans all smell unpleasantly, the odour resembling that of sheep, although we do not observe it ; whilst Europeans notice and dislike the smell of the negro, a smell of the existence of which he is unaware. The blood of animals, including that of man, has, when freshly shed, a smell peculiar to the species, which has not, however, any resemblance to that of the skin or of the waxy glands of the same animal. It seems that in regard to the exercise of the sense of smell by man, we must distinguish not only greater from less acuteness and variety of perception, but in the case of this sense-organ, as in regard to the others, we must distinguish " unconscious " from " conscious " sensation. All our movements are guided and determined by sensations of touch and sight, and to some extent, of hearing, of which we are unconscious. A vast amount of our sense-experience comes to us and is recorded without our having conscious- ness of anything of the kind going on. It is probable that the world of smells in which a dog with a fine olfactive sense lives, produces little or nothing in the dog's mind which is equivalent to our conscious perception of degrees of agreeable and disagreeable odours. The dog is simply attracted and repulsed in this direction and in that by the operation of his olfactive organs, without, so to speak, giving any attention to the sensation which is guiding him or being " aware " of it. No doubt at times, and with special intensities of smell, he is, in his way, conscious ot a specific sensation. It is probable that whilst man's general acuteness in perceiving and discriminating smells has dwindled (as has that of the apes) in comparison with what it was in his remote animal ancestry, yet he retains a large inherited capacity of unconscious smell-sense, which most of us are unable to recognise, although it is there, UNCONSCIOUS GUIDANCE BY SMELL 203 operating in ourselves unknown to us and unobserved. The consciousness of smell-sensations is what we value and talk of. It does not extend to the more primal smell- excitations, except in extraordinary individuals. Thus, it seems to be not improbable that we are attracted or repelled by other human individuals by the unconscious operation upon us of attractive or repulsive odours, and that the unaccountable liking or disliking which we some- times experience in regard to other individuals is due to perfumes and odours emanating from such persons, which act upon us through our olfactory organs without our being conscious of the fact. It seems that we can thus arrive at a probable explanation of the universality of the habit of kissing, and of " what is that thing we call a kiss." It is not consciously used among civilised populations as a deliberate attempt to smell the person kissed, but it nevertheless serves to allow the unconscious exercise of smell-preference, testing, and selection, with which are mingled, more or less frequently, moments of conscious appreciation of the complex of odours appertaining as an individual quality to the person kissed. CHAPTER XV LAUGHTER ancients associated laughter with the New Year. I am not sure whether or no it is of good omen to begin the New Year with laughter. Omens are such tricky things that I have given up paying any attention to them. One would think it might be held to be unlucky to stumble on the doorstep as you set out from home, but the old omen-wizards, apparently from sheer love of contra- diction, said, " Not at all ! It is unlucky to stumble as you come into the house, and therefore it is lucky to stumble as you go out ! " What is laughter? It is a spasmodic movement of various muscles of the body, beginning with those which half close the eyes and those which draw backwards and upwards the sides of the mouth, and open it so as to expose the teeth, next affecting those of respiration so as to produce short rapidly succeeding expirations accom- panied by sound (called " guffaws " when in excess), and then extending to the limbs, causing up and down move- ment of the half-closed fists and stamping of the feet, and ending in a rolling on the ground and various contortions of the body. Clapping the hands is not part of the laughter " process," but a separate, often involuntary, action which has the calling of attention to oneself as its explanation, just as slapping the ground or a table or one's thigh has. Laughter is spontaneous, that is to say, WHY DO WE LAUGH? 205 the movements are not designed or directed by the conscious will. But in mankind, in proportion as indivi- duals are trained in self-control, it is more or less com- pletely under command, and in spite of the most urgent tendency of the automatic mechanism to enter upon the progressive series of movements which we distinguish as (i) smile, (2) broad smile or grin, (3) laugh, (4) loud laughter, (5) paroxysms of uncontrolled laughter, a man or woman can prevent all indication by muscular move- ment of a desire to laugh or even to smile. Usually laughter is excited by certain pleasurable emotions, and is to be regarded as an " expression " of such emotion just as certain movements and the flow of tears are an " expres- sion " of the painful emotion of grief and physical suffering, and as other movements of the face and limbs are an " expression " of anger, others of " fear." The Greek gods of Olympus enjoyed " inextinguishable laughter." It is interesting to see how far we can account for the strange movements of laughter as part of the inherited automatic mechanism of man. Why do we laugh ? What is the advantage to the individual or the species of " laughing " ? Why do we " express " our pleasurable emotion, and why in this way ? It is said that the out- cast diminutive race of Ceylon known as the Veddas never laugh, and it has even been seriously but erro- neously stated that the muscles which move the face in laughter, are wanting in them. A planter induced some of these people to camp in his " compound," or park, in order to learn something of their habits, language, and beliefs. One day he said to the chief man of the little tribe, " You Veddas never laugh. Why do you never laugh ? " The little wild man replied, " It is true ; we never laugh. What is there for us to laugh at ? " an answer almost terrible in its pathetic submission to .a joyless life. For laughter is primarily, to all races and 206 LAUGHTER conditions of men, the accompaniment, the expression of the simple joy of life. It has acquired a variety of relations and significations in the course of the long development of conscious man but primarily it is an expression of emotion, set going by the experience of the elementary joys of life the light and heat of the sun, the approach of food, of love, of triumph. Before we look further into the matter it is well to note some exceptional cases of the causation of laughter. The first of these is the excitation of laughter by a purely mechanical " stimulus " or action from the exterior, without any corresponding mental emotion of joy namely by " tickling," that is to say, by light rubbing or touching of the skin under the arms or at the side of the neck, or on the soles of the feet. Yet a certain readiness to respond is necessary on the part of the person who is " tickled," for, although an unwilling subject may be thus made to laugh, yet there are conditions of mind and of body in which " tickling " produces no response. I do not propose to discuss why it is that " tickling," or gentle friction of the skin produces laughter. It is probably one of those cases in which a mechanism of the living body is set to work, as a machine may be, by directly causing the final movement (say the turning of a wheel), for the production of which a special train of apparatus, to be started by the letting loose of a spring or the turning of a steam-cock, is provided, and in ordinary circumstance is the regular mode in which the working of the mechanism is started. The apparatus of laughter is when due to " tickling " set at work by a short cut to the nerves and related muscles without recourse to the normal emotional steam-cock. Then we have laughter which is purely due to imita- tion and suggestion. People laugh because others are laughing, without knowing why. This throws a good deal of light on the significance of laughter. It is essentially a VARIETIES OF LAUGHTER 207 social appeal and response. Only in rare cases do people laugh when they are alone. Under conditions which in the presence of others would cause them to laugh they only " chuckle " or smile, and may, though ready to burst into laughter, not even exhibit its minor expressions when alone. On the other hand, some sane people have the habit of laughing aloud when alone, and there is a recognised form of idiocy which is accompanied by incessant laughter, ceasing only with sleep. Then there is that peculiar con- dition of laughter which is called" giggling," which is laughter asserting itself in spite of efforts made to restrain it, and frequently only because the occasion is one when the " giggl er " is especially anxious not to laugh. This kind of "inverted suggestion," as in the case where an individual " blurts out " the very word or phrase which he is anxious not to use, is obviously not primitive, but connected with the long training and drilling of mankind into approved " behaviour " by" taboos "and restrictive injunctions. Efforts to behave correctly, by causing anxiety and mental dis- turbance in excitable or so-called " nervous " subjects, lead to an overmastering impulse to do the very thing which must not be done ! It seems that laughter has its origin far back in the animal ancestry of man, and is essentially an expression to others of the joy and exhilaration felt by the laugher. It is an appeal through the eye and ear for sympathy and comradeship in enjoyment. Its use to social animals is in the binding together of the members of a group or society in common feeling and action. Many monkeys laugh, some of them grinning so as to show the teeth, partly opening the mouth and making sounds by spasmodic breathing, identical with those made by man. I have seen and heard the chimpanzees at the Zoological Gardens laugh like children at the approach of their friend and my friend, the distinguished naturalist Mr. George Boulenger, 208 LAUGHTER F.R.S., recognising him among the crowd in front of their cage when he was still far off. And I have often made chimpanzees laugh " roar with laughter," and roll over in excitement by tickling them under the arms. The saying of Aristotle (inscribed over the curtain of the Palais Royal Theatre in Paris) that "laughter is better than tears, because laughter is the speciality of man," is not true. Not only do the higher apes and some of the smaller monkeys laugh, but dogs also laugh, although they do not make sounds whilst indulging in "spasms of laughter." But their distant cousin, the hyena, does laugh aloud, and its laugh- ter agrees with that of the dog and with the laughter of children and grown men in simpler moods in that it is caused by the pleasurable emotion set up by the imminent gratification of a healthy desire. The hyena laughs, the dog grins and bounds, the child laughs and jumps for joy at the approach of something good to eat. But it is a curious fact that the whole attitude is changed when the food is within reach, and the serious business of consuming it has commenced! Nor, indeed, is the satisfaction which is felt after the gratification of appetite accompanied by laughter. It seems that the display of the teeth by drawing back the corners of the mouth, which is called a "grin," and is associated in many dogs with short, sharp, demon- strative barks, and in mankind with the cackle we call a "laugh," is a retention, a survival, of the playful, good- natured movement of gently biting or pulling a companion with the teeth used by our animal ancestors to draw attention to their joy and to communicate it to others. Gradually it has lost the actual character of a friendly bite; the fore-feet or hands pull instead of the teeth ; the sound emitted has become further differentiated from other sounds made by the animal. But the movement for the display of the teeth, though no longer needed as a part of the act of gripping, remains as an understood and universal THE LAUGH OF ESCAPE FROM DEATH 209 indication of joy and kindly feeling. So universal is it that this friendly display of the teeth under the name " smile " is attributed to Nature, to Fortune, and to deities by all races of men when those powers seem to favour them. Laughter is, then, in its essence and origin, a communica- tion or expression to others of the joyous mood of the laugher, There are many and strangely varied occasions when laughter seizes on man, and it is interesting to see how far they can be explained by this conception of the primary and essential nature of the laugh, for many of them seem at first sight remote from it. There is, first of all, the laughter of revivification and escape from death or danger. After railway accidents, earthquakes, and such terrible occurrences, those who have been in great danger often burst into laughter. The nervous balance has been upset by the shock (we call them "shocking accidents "), and the emotional joy of escape, the joy of recovered life, asserts itself in what appears to the onlooker to be an unseemly, an unfeeling laugh. It is recorded that one of the entombed French coal miners, who two years ago were imprisoned without food or light for twenty days a thousand feet below in the bowels of the earth, burst into a ghastly laugh when he was rescued and brought to the upper air once more. The Greeks and Romans in some of their festal ceremonies made the priest or actor who represented dead nature returning to life in the spring, burst into a laugh a ceremonial or " ritual " laugh. Our poets speak of the smiles, and even of the laughter of spring, and that is why laughter is appropriate to New Year's Day. It is the laughter of escape from the death of winter and of return to life, for the true and old-established New Year's Day was not in mid-winter, but a quarter of a year later, when buds and flowers are bursting into life. It is recorded by ancient 14 2io LAUGHTER writers that the " ritual laugh " was enforced by the Sardinians and others who habitually killed their old people (their parents), upon their victims. They smiled and laughed as part of the ceremony, the executioners also smiling. The old people were supposed to laugh with joy at the revivification which was in store for them in a future state. So, too, the Hindoo widows used to laugh when seated on the funeral pyre ready to be burnt. So, too, is explained (by Reinach) the laughter of Joan of Arc when she made her abjuration in front of the faggots which were to burn her to death. Her laugh was caused by the thought of her escape from persecution and of the joyful resurrection soon to come. It was not an indication that she was not serious, and that her abjuration of witch- craft was a farce, as her enemies asserted. More difficult to explain is the laughter excited by scenes or narrations which we call ludicrous, funny, grotesque, comic ; and still more so the derisive and con- temptuous laugh. Caricature or burlesque of well-known men is a favourite method of producing laughter among savages as well as civilised peoples. Why do we laugh when a man on the stage searches everywhere for his hat, which is all the time on his head ? Why do we laugh when a pompous gentleman slips on a piece of orange- peel and falls to the ground, or when one buffoon unex- pectedly hits another on the head, and, before he has had time to recover, with equal unexpectedness hooks his legs with a stick and brings him heavily to the ground ? Why did we laugh at the adventures of Mr. Penley in "Charley's Aunt"? In all of these "ludicrous" affairs there is an element of surprise, a slight shock which puts us off our mental balance, and the subsequent laughter, when we realise either that no serious harm has been done or that the whole thing is make-believe, seems to partake of the character of the " laugh of escape." It is caused by a THE LAUGH OF DERISION 211 sense of relief when we recognise that the disaster is not real. We laugh at the " unreal " when we should be filled with horror and grief were we assured that there was real pain and cruelty going on in front of us. The laughter caused by grotesque mimicry or caricature of pompous or solemn individuals seems to. arise from the same (more or less unconscious) working of the mind as that caused by some unexpected neglect of those social " taboos " or laws of behaviour which we call modesty, decency, and propriety. They either cause indignation and resentment in the on-looker at the neglect of respect for the taboo, or, on the contrary, the natural man, long oppressed by pomposity or by the fetters of propriety imposed by society, suddenly feels a joyous sense of escape from his bonds, and bursts into laughter the laughter of a return to vitality and nature which is enormously encouraged and developed into " roars of merriment " by the sympathy of others around him who are experiencing the same emotion and expressing it in the same way. The laugh of derision and contempt and the laugh of exultation and triumph are of a different character. I cannot now discuss them further than to say that they are either genuine or pretended assertions of joy in one's own superior vitality or other superiority. The " sardonic smile " and " sardonic laughter " have been supposed by some learned men to refer to the smiles of the ancient Sardinians when stoning their aged parents. But they have no more to do with Sardinians than they have with sardines or sardonyx. The word " sardonic " is related to a Greek word which means " to snarl," and a sardonic grin is merely a snarl. In it the teeth are shown with malicious intent, and not as they are in the benevolent appeal of true laughter. Mrs. Grote, the wife of the great historian (who was herself declared by a French wit to furnish the explanation of the word " grotesque "), wrote 212 LAUGHTER of " Owen's sugar-of-lead smile " referring to the great naturalist, Richard Owen. There was no malice in the description, for he had, as some others have, a very sweet smile, accompanied by a strangely grave and disapproving glare in his large blue prominent eyes. It was only apparently sugar of lead ; really, it was sugar of milk the milk of human kindness. The smile of the lost picture called " La Gioconda " is by fanciful people regar- ded as something very wonderful. It is really the clever portraiture of the habitual " leer " of a somewhat wearied sensual woman. It had a fascination for the great Leonardo, but no profound significance. CHAPTER XVI FATHERLESS FROGS ONE of the most interesting discoveries of recent date in regard to the processes which go on in that all- important material protoplasm which is the physical basis of life and the essential constituent of "cells" those minute corpuscles of which all living bodies are built was made in 1910 by a French naturalist, M. Bataillon, and has been examined and confirmed by another French biologist, M. Henneguy. To explain this discovery, a few words as to well-known facts are necessary. It is well known that if we isolate a female frog at the egg-laying season and let her swim in perfectly pure filtered water, and proceed to deposit some of her eggs in that water, the eggs will not germinate; they remain unchanged for a time and then decompose become, in fact, " rotten." It is a matter of common knowledge that it is necessary for the eggs to be "fertilised" in order that they may start on that series of changes and growth which we call "development," and become tadpoles and eventually young frogs. The " fertilisation " of the frog's eggs is effected in ordinary conditions by the presence in the water of the pond, into which the female sheds them, of microscopic sperm-filaments (often called spermatozoa, or simply " sperms ") which are shed into the water at the same time by the male frog. The egg (the blackish-brown spherical body, as big as a 214 FATHERLESS FROGS rape-seed, which is imbedded in a thin jelly, and is familiar to those who are drawn by curiosity to look into the waters of wayside ponds in spring) is a single cell or corpuscle of protoplasm distended with dark-coloured and other granules of nutrient substance. A single sperm (though requiring the microscope to render it visible) is also a single cell. It is a minute oval body, with a long serpentine tail of actively undulating protoplasm. Hundred of thousands of these are shed into the water at the breeding season by the male frog. One is enough to fertilise the egg. The sperm-cells swim in the water, and are chemically attracted by the eggs. As there are so many sperms, one of them is sure to reach each black egg-sphere. It drives its way into the substance of the egg, making a minute hole in its surface ; then the protoplasm of the sperm fuses with the protoplasm of the egg, and becomes intimately mixed with it. The egg-cell has a " nucleus," that dense, peculiar, deep-lying, and well-marked " kernel " of its protoplasm which all cells have. It is of essential importance in the life and activity of the cell. The sperm-cell has also a " nucleus," and now (as has been carefully asertained) the nucleus of the sperm and the nucleus of the egg-cell unite and form one single nucleus. The egg is thereupon said to be " fertilised" that is to say, "rendered fertile." It at once commences to move. Its surface ripples and contracts and nips in deeply, so that the sphere is marked out into two hemispheres. These are two " cells," or masses of protoplasm, adhering to each other. Each is provided with its own distinct nucleus or cell-kernel, for the first step in the division of the egg-sphere is the division within it of its newly constituted nucleus into two, each half consisting of nearly equal proportions of the mingled substance of the sperm-nucleus and the egg- nucleus. The two first cells or hemispheres again divide, and so the process goes on until the little black egg has FERTILISATION OF THE EGG-CELL 215 the appearance of a mulberry, each granule of the berry being a cell provided with its own nucleus derived from the original nucleus formed by the fusion of the nuclei of the paternal and maternal cells. In the course of a day or two the division has proceeded so far that the resulting " cells " are so small as to be invisible with a hand-glass, and require one to use a high magnifying power in order to distinguish them. And there are hundreds of them ; the whole mass of the " egg " within, as well as on the surface, has divided into separate cells. They go on multiplying, take up water, and nourish themselves on the granular nutritive matter present from the first in the egg- cell. The little mass elongates, increases in size, and gradually assumes the form of a young tadpole. We see, then, that the process of fertilisation consists in two things, the latter of which necessitates the former, viz. in the breaking or penetration of the surface of the egg-cell by the active sperm filament, and second, in the fusion of the substance of the sperm-filament with that of the egg in such a way that there is a distinct and intimate fusion of the nucleus of the sperm filament with the nucleus of the egg-cell. The recent discovery of M. Bataillon is this, viz. that you can make the frog's egg develop in a perfectly regular way and become a tadpole and then a young frog without the admission to it of a sperm-filament or of any substance derived from the male frog. All you have to do and the operation, though it sounds easy and simple, is an exceedingly delicate and difficult one is to prick with a fine needle the surface of the little black egg-sphere (not merely of the jelly surrounding it) when it is shed by the female frog into perfectly pure water free from sperms or anything of the sort. The slight artificial puncture acts as does the natural puncture by the swimming sperm- filament, and is sufficient ! The egg proceeds to develop quite regularly. There is no fusion of the nucleus of the 2i6 FATHERLESS FROGS egg-cell with any matter from the outside ; no paternal " material " is introduced, but the nucleus of the egg-cell divides just as though there had been ! The whole progeny of cells, successively formed, are the pure offspring of the maternal egg-cell and its nucleus. The tadpoles and young frogs so produced are examples of what is called " parthenogenesis " that is to say, virginal reproduc- tion reproduction without fertilisation by material derived from a male parent ! The needle, which gives off no material, but simply makes a tiny break in the surface of the egg, does all that is necessary ! To those not acquainted with all that has been ascer- tained as to the reproduction of lower animals, such as insects, crustaceans, and worms, this discovery will appear more astonishing than it really is. We know of many lower animals in which the egg-cells produced by the females do regularly and naturally develop without the intervention of a male and without fertilisation. In an earlier volume^ of this " Easy Chair Series " I wrote of this curious subject, and described the virgin reproduction or parthenogenesis of the hop-louse and other plant lice, of some moths, of some fresh-water shrimps, and of the queen bee (who produces only drones by eggs which are not fertilised). But I had to point out then that no case was known of " parthenogenesis "-that is to say, repro- duction by unfertilised eggs among the whole series of vertebrate animals, the fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The chief point of novelty in M. Bataillon's discovery is that we have now an experimental demon- stration of parthenogenesis in a vertebrate animal, and in one so highly organised as the frog. And equally in- teresting, indeed more important from the point of view as to the real meaning and nature of fertilisation, is the mode in which the parthenogenesis of the frog is set * Science from an Easy Chair,' Methuen & Co., 1910. EGG CELLS DEVELOPING UNFERTILISED 217 going, namely, by a mere prick of the surface film of the ripe egg ! There have, however, been important experiments on the subject of the development of eggs without fertilisa- tion in recent years, prior to these discoveries as to the frog's egg. A favourite subject for such inquiries is the sea urchin (Echinus of different kinds). The female sea urchin, or sea egg, like its close allies the star fishes, lays a great number of very transparent minute eggs (each about the -g-Jirth f an mcn ' m diameter) in sea-water, and they are there fertilised by the mobile sperm-filaments discharged by the males. The eggs are so transparent and so easily kept alive in jars of sea- water that there is no difficulty in watching under the microscope the pene- tration of the egg by a sperm, and the fusion and other changes in the nuclei. Delages of Paris, and Loeb of California, have made valuable studies on these eggs. Loeb has shown that they may be artificially started on the course of development and cell division without fertili- sation simply by the action of minute quantities of simple chemicals (fatty acids, etc.) introduced into the sea- water by the experimenter. These chemicals appear to act on the delicate pellicle which forms the surface of the egg-cell in much the same way as the prick of a needle acts on a frog's egg. A limited and delicately adjusted disturbance of the cohesion (or of the surface-tension) of the egg-cell seems to be all that is necessary for starting the egg-cell on its career of development. It becomes, in the light of these experiments, not so much a wonder that egg-cells should develop " on their own," but that they do not more frequently do so. It must be remembered that the " germination " and development of unfertilised eggs, even when the whole range of animals and plants is taken into account (for plants also are reproduced by single cells identical in character with the egg-cells and sperm-cells 21.8 FATHERLESS FROGS of animals), that is to say, the existence of " partheno- genesis " as a natural, regularly recurring process, is excep- tional. We must distinguish cases in which it regularly occurs as part of the life-history of an animal or plant from cases in which it has been successfully brought about by experimental " artificial " methods designed by man. The plant-lice " naturally " reproduce through the summer by unfertilised eggs producing only females, but in the first cold of autumn males are hatched from some of the eggs, and the eggs of this generation are fertilised and bide through the winter, hatching in the following spring. Some few moths and flies also reproduce naturally during summer by unfertilised eggs, and the brine-shrimps and some other fresh-water shrimps produce " fatherless " broods from their eggs, sometimes for years in succession, until " one fine day " some males are hatched, owing to what causes we do not know. The queen bee naturally and regularly lays a certain number of unfertilised eggs, and these produce, not females as do the unfertilised eggs of plant-lice, etc., but male bees the drones and it is only from such eggs that the drones of bees are born. These are the chief cases of regular and natural partheno- genesis, but there are others which might be enumerated. On the other hand, examples of artificially induced development of eggs, not fertilised, are very few. The first known came accidentally to notice. Female silk-worm moths reared in confinement sometimes lay eggs when kept apart from the male, and these have been found to hatch, and give rise to caterpillars, which were not reared to maturity. Other moths bred by collectors behaved in the same way, but the grubs were reared to maturity, and three successive generations of " fatherless " moths were obtained. In these cases the hatching of unfertilised eggs is not known to occur in a state of nature, although it probably occurs occasionally. It has also been observed M. BATAILLON'S DISCOVERY 219 an important fact when considered with the history of the frog's egg and the needle that " brushing " the unfertilised eggs of the silkworm and other moths, that is to say, gently polishing the little egg-shells with a soft camel's-hair brush, has the effect of starting development. Taking two lots of unfertilised eggs adhering to slips of paper, as laid by the mother moth, it is found that those gently brushed will hatch, whilst those not brushed will either not hatch at all, or in very small number. The brushing seems to disturb the equilibrium of the proto- plasmic egg-cell within the egg-shell just sufficiently to set it going going on its course of division and develop- ment. The only other case of " artificially-induced parthenogenesis " at present recorded is that of the common frog, due to M. Bataillon. There are questions of great interest still to be made out as the result of his discovery. Can the fatherless brood be reared to maturity and again made to yield a fatherless generation ? What is the precise structure of the nuclei of the cells which originate from the nucleus of the egg-cell only, and not from a nucleus formed by the fusion of that with a sperm- cell nucleus ? These and similar questions are the motive of further careful study now in progress* The important conclusion is forced upon us by these experiments with a needle, that even in so typical and highly organised a creature as one of the higher or five- fingered, air-breathing vertebrates, the egg-cell does not require any material admixture from the sperm-cell in order that it may successfully germinate and develop, but only a disturbance of equilibrium, which can be admini- stered as well by a needle's point as by a sperm-filament ! Yet the whole process of sexual reproduction undoubtedly has, as its origin and explanation, the fusion in the first cell of the new generation from which all the rest will arise, of the material of two distinct individuals. Thus 220 FATHERLESS FROGS the qualities of the young are not a repetition of the qualities of one parent, nor are they a mere mixture of the qualities of both parents (for contradictory qualities cannot mix). They are a new grouping of qualities com- prising some of the one parent and some of the other, and hence a great opportunity for variation, for departure from either parent's exact "make-up," is afforded, and for the selection and survival of the new combination. It is, it would seem, only in exceptional cases and for limited periods that uni-sexual or fatherless reproduction can be advantageous to a species of plant or animal. Such cases are those in which abundant food, present for a limited season, renders the most rapid multiplication of individuals an advantage to the species. But after this exceptional abundance has come to an end, the more usual process of reproduction by fertilised eggs (also necessary and advan- tageous for the preservation of the race by "natural selection in the struggle for existence " of the new varieties so produced) is resumed until again the abundant food is present, as in the annual history of plant lice and the plants on which they feed. CHAPTER XVII PRIMITIVE BELIEFS ABOUT FATHERLESS PROGENY IN the preceding chapter I related the curious and exceptional cases of " fatherless reproduction " by means of true egg-cells, those cells of special nature pro- duced in the organs called "ovaries," present in all but the simplest animals and plants. These egg-cells are usually, with elaborate sureness and precise mechanism after liberation from the ovary, fertilised by (that is to say, fused with) the complemental reproductive cells the sperm-filaments produced by other individuals, the males. But we must not forget and, indeed, one should not enter on the consideration of this subject without a know- ledge of the fact that vast numbers of animals and plants reproduce themselves " asexually," as it is termed, namely, by breaking-off or separating buds, branches, or other good solid bits of their structure which, when thus separa- rated, are capable of individual life and growth. Thus plants very largely multiply, using this method in addition to the sexual method of egg-cells and sperm-cells. One may take " cuttings " from plants and rear them, and plants also " cut " or detach such bits themselves, in the form of runners, of dividing bulbs, of bulbules, and such reproductive growths seen on the lily, on the viviparous, alpine grass, and many other plants. Even a bit cut off from the leaf of a plant (for instance, a begonia) will 222 SOME PRIMITIVE BELIEFS sprout, root itself, and grow into a completely formed and healthy individual. Animals, too, such as polyps or zoophytes, and many beautiful and elaborate worms, multiply by " fission," dividing into two or more parts, each of which becomes a complete animal. This process is not seen in any fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, or mammal, nor in molluscs, nor in insects, crustaceans, myriapods, and arachnids (spiders and scorpions). It is almost wholly confined to lower animals (worms and polyps) and to plants, and hence is often called " vegetative reproduction." The most remarkable case of its appearance among higher forms is that of the marine ascidians, or tunicates* close allies of the true vertebrates where reproduction by budding and the formation of wonderfully elaborate star- like forms produced by budding and the cohesion of the budded individuals as one composite individual are well- known. Their beautiful shapes and colours have been reproduced in hundreds of exquisite pictures by our great artist-naturalists. We thus have to recognise that there are two distinct kinds of reproduction in living things. One is " asexual," by means of division or separation of large or special masses of their substance, made up of ordinary tissue cells. Co-existing with this, often in the same individuals, is the other method, the " sexual," by means of detached egg-cells and sperm-cells which are thrown off from the parents, and do not (except in rare instances) proceed to develop unless the egg-cell is " fer- tilised " by the fusion with it of a sperm-cell. The whole subject of the reproduction of animals and plants was, until the introduction of the microscope, involved in obscurity and mystery. The Greeks and Romans had necessarily very imperfect and erroneous notions on the subject, and it was not until 300 years ago that William Harvey, the discoverer of the * See p. 276 for some account of the Tunicates or Ascidians. HARVEY AND MILTON 223 circulation of the blood, declared, as a general law, that every living thing is born from an egg. During that 300 years his conclusion has been examined and modified, corrected and expanded, and the microscope has at last enabled us to see and follow the excessively minute particles and structures by which sexual reproduction is effected. Harvey's dictum was a step in advance when it was made, for previously the belief was current that living things were " bred " in all sorts of queer ways. It was supposed that the putrefying flesh of a dead animal actually was converted by a sudden process into maggots, and that rotten wood would breed, out of its own sub- stance, ship's barnacles and even young geese and mice an opinion contested only 200 years ago by Sir Thomas Browne ! No difficulty was felt in admitting that whole swarms of insects, fishes, and even herds of larger beasts were spontaneously generated from mud, from putrid matter, or from the waters of the sea. That, indeed, was the popular notion set forth by the poet, John Milton, as to the mode in which living things were " miraculously " brought into existence at the beginning of things by the " fiat " of the Creator. What more probable than that such a creation should still be, here and there, at work ? However, not three centuries ago, actual experiment gradually convinced the learned that maggots are bred in a dead body only from the eggs laid by parent flies, as shown by the Italian Redi in 1668 who found that no maggots were bred when he simply excluded the flies from access to the dead body by covering it with wire gauze, but that the blow-flies swarmed on the gauze and vainly laid their eggs on it ! It was only gradually recognised that birth by means of eggs or germs extruded from parental organisms of the same history and character as their offspring is the explanation of all such swarms of flies, worms, and even mushrooms and moulds as had 224 SOME PRIMITIVE BELIEFS been formerly ascribed to a mysterious power of breeding these organisms possessed by inanimate dirt and refuse. In spite of this progress in knowledge the belief in " spontaneous generation " of such excessively minute organisms as the bacteria and yeasts was general until Theodore Schwann in 1836 performed with them just the same experiment as Redi had performed with blow-flies in 1668. He showed that if a putrescible liquid (for instance, soup) were boiled in a retort so as to destroy all germs, and then the open neck of the retort was kept heated in a flame, so that no floating germs could enter alive, the soup did not putrefy, and no bacteria or other organisms appeared in it. The old notions, nevertheless, survive to this day. Peasants, fisher-folk, and even uneducated wealthy countrymen cling to them with the confidence arising from profound ignorance. And occasionally a man of some scientific training and knowledge astonishes the world by a futile attempt to show that the old fancies were true in regard, at any rate, to the lowest microscopic forms of life. But these are but the echoes of the past ; we do not believe nowadays in " spontaneous genera- tion," nor in sudden transformations of lower into higher forms of life. The doctrine, " omme vivum e vivo' 1 every living thing (in the present condition of our earth) is born from a living thing is now held by scientific investigators as a reasonable generalisation of experience. On the other hand, Harvey's dictum, " Every living thing comes from an egg," is only true in a limited sense, namely, that whilst the individual among most larger animals and plants is always traceable to an egg-cell detached from a parental individual of a like kind or species, there are whole groups and series of lower animals and most plants in which the individual born or " developed " from an egg-cell does not proceed when grown to full size to reproduce in turn by eggs and fer- REPRODUCTION BY BUDDING 225 tilising sperms, but divides into two or more individuals or gives off detached buds or reproductive bulbs, which become separate individuals, and only after these and several successive generations of individuals have been thus produced " asexually," by fission or by budding, does a generation appear which produces true egg-cells and sperm-cells and reproduces by their means. Thus it is true that the individuals " budded off" or separated by fission from an asexual parent can be ultimately traced through one or more generations of previous asexual parents to an egg-cell produced and fertilised in the regular way, and with this important modification Harvey's dictum is justified. These facts and the wonderful histories of the animals and plants in which egg-and- sperm-producing generations " alternate " with generations which multiply by fission and budding have only been worked out in detail and by the aid of the microscope during the great century of scientific discovery which lies just behind us. Often the two generations, reproducing, the one by fission, the other by egg- and sperm-cells, are alike in appearance, but often they are very different, and have naturally been supposed at first to have nothing to do with each other. Thus some of the little " coralline polyps " and other most beautiful little marine flower-like polyps attached to rocks, weeds, and shells in the sea reproduce by budding and division. But after a period of such growth and such budding they produce on their stalks jelly-fish ! These jelly-fish are budded and thrown off by them, as glass-like swimming bells, which lead an independent life, seize prey, nourish themselves, and grow to a size varying from that of a sixpence to that of a cart-wheel. These " bells " are commonly known as " jelly-fish." They dis- charge thousands of egg-cells into the sea and fertilise them with sperms 1 From those fertilised eggs grow young 15 226 FATHERLESS PROGENY polyps, which fix themselves to rocks or weeds, and grow up to bud and multiply by fission, and eventually to pro- duce again by fission a generation of jelly-fishes ! Such a marvellous history of alternating modes of reproduction has been discovered, and described in greatest microscopic detail and with most ample pictorial representations of all the minutest structures of the organisms studied, not only in many marine polyps, but also in the case of many para- sitic worms, such as the tape-worms and the liver-flukes. Some of the most fascinating cases, on account of the beauty of the little creatures concerned, are found amongst the surface-swimming Ascidians of the sea the glass-like Salps (see p. 303). But our common ferns and mosses also show this same alternation of sexual and sexless genera- tions, the two generations differing greatly in size, form, and structure from one another, whilst the whole history of "flowers" and their structure is bound up with a wonder- ful " telescoping " or rolling of the two generations (sexless and sexual) into one plant ! (See Chapters VII and VIII.) It was not until long after Harvey's time that these things were understood, and there was every excuse in the absence of observation of the facts, especially those yet to be revealed by the microscope for the erroneous suppositions and explanations which were formerly enter- tained as to the mode of reproduction of the less familiar plants and animals. If we go back to the starting-point of European science, to the great Aristotle, we find that he had formed singularly correct conclusions as to the reproduction of the larger kinds of animals, though he knew nothing about " sperms," having no microscope, and only legarded the fluid produced by male animals as exercising a fertilising effect on the eggs, which in many instances are large enough for anyone to see. But, of course, he could not have any knowledge of the egg-cell, nor does he say anything about the reproduction of STORIES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS 227 plants. Later, however, the sexuality of flowering plants was taught by his pupils, and at the time of the Roman Empire there was a very definite belief among learned men (such as Pliny) that the larger plants and animals reproduce by eggs or by seeds produced by the females which require to be " fertilised " by a product formed in the males the spermatic fluid in the case of animals and by the pollen in the case of a few flowering plants '(e.g. the date-palm). But there was no idea of holding this as a general and universal law. From Pliny to Harvey and later, those who concerned themselves with natural history accepted without difficulty any strange accounts or appearances as to the reproduction or the sudden production in fanciful and astonishing ways of the lower and smaller animals and plants. They did not expect these inferior creatures to have the same methods of reproduction as the higher and bigger creatures. It is only now, since the later years of the nineteenth century, that we are able to show that all animals and plants, even the minutest microscopic kinds, reproduce by the formation and separation of egg-cells, and that these egg-cells are (in all but a few exceptional cases) fertilised by sperm- cells, which are smaller than the egg-cells, and usually provided with active swimming filaments. Not only did our mediaeval ancestors believe all sorts of fancies as to the propagation of lower animals and plants, but they were quite prepared to accept stories as to reproduction in the case of higher animals, and even in mankind, by irregular methods, such as parthenogenesis, or the defect of an ordinary male parent. In the Middle Ages in Europe, and earlier in the East, the belief in the frequent occurrence of the birth of a child which had no human male parent was common. It was, so to speak, an admitted though irregular occurrence. A very curious thing is that when such cases were supposed to occur, they 22 8 FATHERLESS PROGENY were not ascribed to any natural process such as we now recognise in the " parthenogenesis " of insects and crus- taceans, but to the visitation of the mother by a spirit a floating, volatile demon or angel (known as an "incubus" in the Middle Ages) beneficent or malicious as the case might be. Stories of the nocturnal visits of these mys- terious ghostly " incubi " are on record in great number and variety, both in European and Oriental tradition and legend. There seems to have been a readiness to believe the theory of paternity from among the hidden world of goblins, fairies, and sprites which was very naturally made use of by a woman and her relatives when she could not produce the father of her child. We come across examples of such beliefs in invisible agents of paternity even among the more cultivated Romans. Thus Virgil in his " Georgics " cites as a fact that mares are fertilised by the wind. It is now known that, quite apart from any motive of concealment of the true paternity of their offspring, some of the native tribes of Australia have the belief that, as the regular and normal thing, children are begotten by strange fairy-like spirits which haunt the rocks and trees of certain localities and enter the future mother as she passes by these haunted rocks and trees. These Australian " black fellows " hold that the human father counts for nothing in the matter. The belief of these Australian savages is referred to by writers on the subject (Mr. Andrew Lang and others) as " the spiritual theory of conception." There are some reasons for thinking that this curious theory and the accompanying ignorance as to the natural causes of conception were widely spread among primeval men. The fact that most trees are fertilised by the wind (which carries to their female flowers the invisible powder, or pollen, of the male flowers, conveyed in the case of smaller plants which have gay-coloured flowers by bees SPIRITUAL THEORY OF CONCEPTION 229 and butterflies) may have been noticed by primitive man, and have started the belief that there are fertilising spirits or demons in the air. However the fancy arose, it is only a parallel to the strange fancies as to spontaneous generation of all sorts of animals and plants current 200 years ago among civilised men. And, further, it is worth noting that the uncanny belief in the " incubus " which was generally prevalent in the Middle Ages may possibly be considered as a survival in (or incursion into) Europe of the primitive spiritual theory of all human conception, and of the fertilising activity of the haunting spirits of the air which was held by primeval man, and is still found in full force among the Arunta tribes of Australia. CHAPTER XVIII THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN THE tradition of the existence of dwarfs, not as isolated examples, but as a race with their own customs, government, and language is familiar among civilised people, and exists among scattered and remote savages. We have all heard of them in that treasury of primitive beliefs the nursery. Therefore, the fact that there are at this moment in various parts of the world dwarf or pygmy tribes of men, living in proximity to but apart from those races which have a stature identical with our own, has a great fascination and interest. Some few races of men have an average height of an inch, or thereabouts, greater than that of the people of the British Islands, whilst some are shorter by as much as two or three inches. But, on the whole, it may be said that, putting aside the pygmy races, of which I am about to write, mankind generally does not show a very striking range of normal stature the mass in any race or region of the globe varying from 5ft. 4111. to 5ft. 8in., and tending to the higher rather than the lower figure. The pygmy races are sharply separated from normal mankind by as much as a foot, and even more, in average stature, ranging from 4ft. to something less than 4ft. I I in. in height. They are, enumerating them in the order of their purity of race and completeness of their isolation : ( I ) The CHARACTERISTICS OF PYGMIES 231 Mincopies, or Andaman Islanders ; (2) the Congo pygmies (comprising the tribes known as the Akkas, or Tiki-Tikis, the Barnbutis, the Watwas, the Obongos, and Bayagas) ; (3) the bushmen of South Africa ; (4) the Aetas of the Philippine Islands ; (5) the Samangs of Malacca, and very similar isolated pygmy tribes which have been observed in New Guinea, and also in the Solomon Islands and in Formosa. The Vcddas of Ceylon, the Senois of Malacca, and the Toalas of Celebes are apparently races which have resulted from the " crossing " of true pygmies with other normal-statured races inhabiting the islands in which they are found. The Brahouis of Beloochistan and the " monkey-men," or Bandra-Loks, east of the Indus, appear also to belong to the pygmy race. Next to their agreement in small size, the most inter- esting fact about the pygmies we have just emumerated is that, notwithstanding the wide area over which they are found in scattered, isolated communities viz. from the Congo to South Africa on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from Central Africa to the Indian Ocean, and on to New Guinea, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa yet they all have short, round skulls of full average brain capacity, and have their hair growing in tightly curled-up peppercorn-like tufts t\vo characters found combined in no other race. They usually have finely-deve- loped, straight foreheads, and the jaws do not project strongly ; the lips are usually fine and thin, and the nose, though very broad, is not always greatly flattened. They are well-shaped, well-proportioned little people, neither grotesque nor deformed. To a great extent their corporeal features suggest an infantile or child-like stage of development, and the same is true of their intellectual condition and of their productions. Their habitations are very primitive, either caves or low clay-made huts, of the shape of half an egg. They do not make pottery, 232 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN and neither keep herds nor till the ground, contenting themselves with such food as wild fruits and roots and the animals they kill with spear or arrow or capture in traps. They do not mutilate or bedaub their bodies (though the Andamanese indulge in a kind of " tattooing "). Among them the struggle for life does not exist in its more brutal forms. They take care of the sick and feeble, the children, and the old people. Cannibalism is unknown amongst them ; they punish murder and theft. They are honest, and, moreover, are monogamous, and punish adultery, which is rare among them. Their religion is remarkably simple. It is limited to reverence for a Supreme Being, without any offering of sacrifice, and they do not worship ancestors nor exhibit the superstitions known as "animism." It has been argued that these characteristics, taken together, indicate a primitive condition of humanity. On the other hand, many writers regard them as degenerate offshoots of negro-like races of larger stature and more complicated mental development. There is no name by which the whole series of these small-sized people is indicated excepting the ancient designation of "pygmies." Many careful students of human races separate the pygmies of Africa as " negril- loes " from the pygmies of Asia, whom they designate " negritoes," and it is held that the negrilloes (Congo pygmies and bushmen) hold the same relation to African negroes and Zulus as the negritoes (Andamanese, and scattered tribes in New Guinea, the Philippines, For- mosa, and the Solomon Islands, as well as in Malacca and Annam and in the north-west and in other parts of Hindustan) hold to the full-sized, frizzly haired Papuans. This, no doubt, is a convenient way of stating the case, but the important fact remains that the pygmies of purest race, both of Africa and Asia, have the remarkable characteristics in common which we have noted above. COLOUR OF THE SKIN 233 Their bodily and mental peculiarities certainly suggest, whether the suggestion can be verified or not, the former existence in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia of a widely spread pygmy race of uniform character, a race which has been, to a large extent, destroyed by other races of larger and more powerful individuals, but has also in many regions (especially on the Asiatic Continent) intermarried with the surrounding larger people, and given rise to hybrid races. At the same time, it seems that in other regions this race has, by isolation in forests and mountain ranges and by the exercise of special skill in the use of poisoned arro\vs and in the arts of conceal- ment, evasion, and terrorising, succeeded in maintaining its existence and primitive independence dating from remote prehistoric times. Whether we regard the pygmies as one race or as the result of local modification of larger races, it is noteworthy that they are of lighter tint than the black races close to or among whom they live. Some, both of the African and Asiatic pygmies, are very dark brown practically black -but many are of a paler and yellowish tint. We must not forget that the babies and quite young children of negroes are nearly " white." The Asiatic pygmies, notably the Andamanese, are darker than their African fellows. It must necessarily be difficult in studying such a race to make due allowance not merely for admixture of blood from surrounding populations, but to estimate correctly what the little people have learnt in the way of art and habit from their neighbours arid what is their own. The Andaman Islanders, though provided with metal by trading, still use the sharp-edged splinters of volcanic glass-stone to shave their heads, which they keep entirely bald ! It is one of the merits of the showman's enterprise in modern times that he brings to a great city like London 234 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN groups of interesting savages, without imposture and without ill-treatment, and enables us to see and talk with them almost as though we had travelled to their remote native forests. It would certainly be a successful and worthy enterprise on the part of the Anthropological Society of London to start a garden and houses such as those maintained by the Zoological Society, but arranged so as to receive some five or six groups of interesting " savages." The society would be responsible for careful and humane treatment of their guests, and return them after a sojourn, say, of a couple of years, to their native country and replace them by specimens of other races. Under the auspices of showmen I have seen Zulu Kaffirs, Guiana Indians, North American Indians, Kalmuck Tartars, South African bushmen, and Congo pygmies in London, besides many hundreds of African negroes of various tribes. Farini's bushmen and Hanson's Congo pygmies were perfect samples of the dwarf race about which I am writing. But I also saw and examined care- fully, in 1872, at Naples, with my friend Professor Panceri, the two African pygmies, Tebo and Chairallah, who were the first to reach Europe. They were subsequently adopted by and lived for some years under the care of Count Miniscalchi Erizzo. They were very intelligent, and learnt to read and to write well, and to play difficult music on the piano, with feeling and appreciation. We were especially concerned to determine by the stage of growth of their teeth and other indications whether they were merely ordinary young negroes, as some anthro- pologists supposed, or really representatives of the dwarf race as asserted by the traveller Miani, who bought them in exchange for a dog and a calf, in the country of the Mombootoos, south of the Welle River, and west of the Albert Nyanza. They were still young and growing when we examined them, but Tebo ceased growth when EGYPTIAN STORIES OF PYGMIES 235 he had reached a stature of 4 ft. 8 inches. We had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that they were, when we saw them, really of exceptionally small stature for their age as indicated by the teeth which were in place in their jaws. The Akkas living near the sources of the Nile were known to the ancient Egyptians, and were the foundation of stories and fabulous exaggerations among the ancient Greeks. Even before Homer these stories existed, and the little people were called " pygmies," which means " of the length of the forearm " (Greek, pugme). Homer FIG. 28. Copy of a figure from a group drawn on a Greek vase (dating from 300 B.C.), representing a number of the pygmies of the remote Upper Nile engaged in battle. The resemblance of the peaked cap and of the beard to those of the little figures carved by Black Forest peasants and intended to represent the mythical "gnomes" or dwarf mining-elves is noteworthy. (From Saglio and Deren- berg's ' Dictionnarie des Antiquite's Grecs et Romaines.') refers to the wars of these pygmies with the cranes, and as a matter of fact the African pygmies do wage a kind of war upon the great cranes which swarm in the marsh-land of their country. Naturally enough the really small size of the African pygmies (they are about 4 ft. in height, some two or three inches less, some as much as eight inches more) was exaggerated by report and tradition, just as the really big eggs of the great extinct ostrich-like bird of Madagascar were represented in the story of Sindbad, in 236 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN the " Arabian Nights," as being as large as the dome of a temple, and the bird large in proportion. The Egyptians, as we have seen, knew the pygmy Akkas, and Egyptian fact was ever the romance of the Greeks. Herodotus mentions the African pygmies from beyond the Libyan desert, citing, as is his wont, the accounts of certain travellers with whom he had conversed, and a later Greek writer tells of a pygmy race in India, a state- ment which our present knowledge confirms. It is a curious fact that Swift's Lilliputians are thus traceable to the Central African dwarf race, for Greek legend related that Hercules visited the country of the pygmies, where on waking from sleep he found one division of the army guarding his right leg, another his left, and others his arms. Hercules got up, swept them all into the lion's skin which he used as a cloak, and went on his way, shaking out his small tormentors from their prison as though they were so many ants. It seems fairly certain that Swift derived the initial scene in his story of Gulliver's adventures among the Lilliputians from this legend. Miani's p)'gmies were members of a tribe discovered by the distinguished traveller Schweinfurth, who, in 1870, was the first to visit the country of the Niam-Niam, to the west of the sources of the Nile, and had the honour of showing that the myths of the ancient Greeks as to a nation of pygmies were based on fact, and that the definite words of Aristotle as to the existence of these pygmy people on the upper reaches of the Nile were correct. Schweinfurth found to the south of the Niam- Niam country a tribe of full-statured negroes called the Mombootoos, whose chief, Moonza, kept close to the Royal residence a colony of pygmies who were called in that country by the name " Akkas." Schweinfurth ascertained that they are spread to the number of many thousands along the borders of the great Congo forest, CONGO AND NEW GUINEA PYGMIES 237 and form numerous tribes. They are very generally well treated by their more powerful neighbours, as by Moonza. Partly from fear of their poisoned arrows and their crafty methods of attack and subsequent disappearance into the forest, partly on account of a superstitious dread of them, the Congo pygmies are not only tolerated, but protected, by the larger people. They alone are at home in the steaming darkness of the immeasurable forest into which no other natives dare to enter. It is a remarkable fact that the Egyptologist Mariette had, before these discoveries, found on an ancient Egyptian monument the portrait of a dwarf inscribed with the word " akka " the identical name by which they are known at this day in the region where Schweinfurth found them. Public interest in the pygmy race was re-aroused three years ago by the announcement that the party of English naturalists at that time exploring the interior of New Guinea had come across a tribe of these little people in the mountains of that island. The existence of these pygmies in New Guinea was already well known, but fuller accounts of them will be valuable. The Italian traveller Beccari, in 1876, speaks of them as " Karonis," and states that they occupy a chain of mountains parallel to the north coast of the north-west peninsular of the island. D'Albertis, Lawes, and other travellers have seen and described individuals of the pygmy race of the mountains of New Guinea. It is interesting to find that they are described as having the body covered with fine, woolly hair, a feature which is recorded by Schweinfurth, by Stanley, and by an ancient Greek writer, in regard to the Congo pygmies of Africa, and led in former times to the notion that the old traditions and accounts of African pygmies referred, not to human beings, but to chimpanzees! The Laplanders are the only very small-sized people in Europe, but they run from 5 ft. upwards, whereas the 238 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN negritoes and negrillos run from about 4 ft. to less than 5 ft. The Lapps (of whom there are about 25,000 in Finmark and Lapmark) are a thick-set, round-headed (brachycephalic), dark-yellow race, and have always been credited with powers of witchcraft and magic by their neighbours and by modern sailors. They live in immediate contact with the Finns (both are Mongolian races), who are very tall and have fair hair and blue eyes. Some writers have supposed that the Lapps are the remnants of a small race which was formerly spread over the whole of Europe, and was exterminated or driven out by the larger races. But we have no evidence in favour of this view and strong evidence against it, since we now know the skulls and skeletons of a great number of the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe belonging to the Bronze, to the Neolithic, and to the Palaeolithic periods. None of these skeletons belong to an abnormally small-sized race, though the Bronze-age people were smaller than their predecessors and successors. The cave-dwellers of the " reindeer " epoch of the Palaeo- lithic period were big men, with fine, high skulls, and even the earlier Palaeolithic men of the glacial period, the man of the Neanderthal, the couple from Spy, and the three recently dug up near Perigueux (of whom I have written in another book),* were not diminutive men. It is true they were not tall only about 5 ft. 4 in. in height but they were very powerful and muscular, and totally different physically from the Lapps or from any of the tropical pygmy men. It is a remarkable fact that in one cave at Mentone, on the Riviera, explored by the Prince of Monaco, two skeletons have been found belonging to a shortish, negro-like race (indicated by the form of the skull), and apparently a little later in date than the Neandermen. We must remember that at that remote date there was continuous land connection between Europe and Africa. * 'Science from an Easy Chair,' Methuen, 1909. THE CAUSES OF SMALL SIZE 239 There is, in fact, no reason to suppose that a pygmy race ever existed in Europe, though, of course, individuals of exceptionally small stature are often produced, and in some regions the whole population is shorter than it is in others. A very interesting question in connection with the origin and significance of pygmy races of men is, "Why is any race smaller in size than another?" Every species among the higher animals has its standard size from which only in the rarest cases are there departures. That in itself is a curious fact. How was the standard size determined, and how is it maintained ? The whole question lies there. At first sight it seems to many people quite simple to account for " pygmies " ; they will tell you that the poor creatures are half-starved and so unable to grow to full size. That explanation does not, however, meet the case, for the African and Asiatic pygmy races are just as well nourished as most of their neighbours. Also if we look a little further we find that the women of every race are smaller than the men, and often much smaller. That is not because they are ill-nourished as compared with the men. And, again, we find very closely similar species of animals existing side by side, one a large species and the other a small one, having the same opportunities of obtaining regular nourishment. There are many instances, but take for example the beautiful Great Koodoo antelope of Africa, with its fine spiral horns, which measures 5ft. at the shoulder, and the Little Koodoo, a complete miniature of it existing alongside of it, and standing only 3ft. 5 in. at the shoulder. Take the two common white butterflies of this country, the Large White and the Small White, also the Large Tortoiseshell butter- fly and the small. Take the instance of many plant genera of which larger and smaller species are found 240 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN growing side by side. The difference in size in these cases cannot be traced to any insufficiency of nutrition in the smaller kind. It is evident that difference of size in animals has some deep-lying cause, which is not merely the greater or less abundance of food. Numerous specimens of a perfectly well-formed elephant, closely allied in structure to the Indian elephant, but only 3 ft. high, are found fossil in Malta and the neighbouring Mediterranean region, and in Liberia a species of hippopotamus, distinct from that of other African regions, is common, which is not bigger than a common pig. Pygmy hogs, pygmy deer, pygmy buffaloes (and many other pygmy animals) are known as thriving wild species, so that it seems clear that there are other causes at work than semi-starvation in the produc- tion of pygmy races. A second suggestion which is sometimes made is that the smaller race, or smaller species of two allied forms, is the original one, and that the larger forms have developed from these and established themselves, without completely destroying the smaller original race. This view has at various times been favoured in regard to the pygmy race of man. There is something plausible in the view that these little men are nearer than normal mankind are to the monkeys, and the fur-like hairiness of their skin has been cited in support of it ; but a fatal objection is that the men of the pure pygmy race of Africa and Asia are really not more, but less, monkey-like than many full-sized savages. They have heads and faces nearer in shape to those of Europeans than have the Australians, the Tas- manians, and the negroes. They are more intelligent, shrewd, and skilful than their full-sized neighbours. It is quite possible that they are a very ancient race more ancient, in their isolation and freedom from complicated customs, habits, and modes of life than other savages THE CAUSES OF SMALL SIZE 241 but they are not primitive in the sense of being ape-like in structure or in want of mental capacity. A third possibility in regard to the pygmy people is that they have been "selected" by natural conditions which favoured the survival of small individuals, and thus established a small race just as man has established small races of horses, dogs, cattle, or what not, by continually selecting small individuals for breeding, until he has produced such races as the Shetland pony, the toy terrier, and the Kerry cow. It is necessary to discover or to suggest (if this explanation is to be accepted) what precisely is the advantage, in a state of nature, to a small- sized race in being of small size. The guess is made that the small people can more easily hide, whether in forest or among the rocks and caves of mountainous regions, from aggressive larger-sized mankind. The objection to this view is that though it may explain the present habits and dwelling-places of some of the pygmy race, it is not capable of explaining their first segregation and formation as a distinct race. Another general advantage which small animals have over larger ones of the same species is that if the food of the species is widely distributed but limited in amount, a hundred individuals weighing 5st. each will secure more of it than fifty individuals weighing lost. each. The total weight of individuals is the same, but the smaller series will cover twice the area and have twice as much opportunity to secure the limited amount of food, whilst, in proportion to their size, requiring less. It cannot be doubted that, other things being equal, this obvious relation must tend to limit the increase in size of animals which have to search for their special food, and must favour small races. Some writers have supposed that small limited areas, such as small islands, favour the production of small races by some mysterious law of appropriateness similar to that 16 242 THE PYGMY RAGES OF MEN which lays down that " who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." The pygmy buffalo of the island of Celebes, the Anoa, is cited as an instance, and the pygmy men of the Andaman Islands as another. But there are plenty of facts which would lead to an exactly opposite conclusion. Gigantic tortoises are found in the Galapagos Islands and in the minute islands of the Indian Ocean, and never on the big continents. Gigantic birds bigger than ostriches abounded in the islands of New Zealand and Madagascar. Some of the tallest races of men are found in the Pacific islands, whilst the tallest European population is that of the north of the island called Great Britain. Probably the real relation of islands to the matter is that owing to their isolation and freedom from the general competition of the vast variety of living things in continental areas, they offer unoccupied territory in which either excep- tionally small or exceptionally big races may flourish if once they reach the island shelter, or are by variation produced there without competitive interference. An important consideration in regard to the formation and segregation of a human variety or race is that mankind shows a tendency to segregate in groups, like with like. To a large extent this is true also of animals, but in man it acquires a special dominance, owing to the greater activity in him of psychical or mental influences in all his proceedings. The " cagots " of mid-France are the descendants of former leper families. They remain separated from the rest of the population, and do not now know why, nor do their hostile neighbours. Such " outcast " or " accursed " tribes and family groups are found also in Great Britain, and throughout the world. Possibly the " pygmies " owe their preservation to this tendency. Virchow regarded the Lapps as a race produced by disease a pathological product. It is possible that former liability to disease and present SMALLNESS A CORRELATION 243 immunity from it is the final explanation of the tropical pygmy race. In the United States black pigs are able to eat, without harm, a common marsh herb, the " Red-root " Lachnanthes tinctoria, which kills other pigs. Hence a black race is established, not because it is black, but be- cause, in it, blackness is " the outward and visible sign of an inward and chemical grace " that is to say, of a physio- logical or chemical power of resistance to, and immunity from, the poison of an otherwise nutritious plant. Such " correlations " were described by Darwin, and are of extreme importance and interest far more so than is, at present, recognised by naturalists. I am inclined to the supposition that the obvious outward signs, the round head, bombous forehead, furry skin, and diminutive size of the pygmies are the outcome of an inward physiological con- dition peculiar to them, which has enabled them to resist disease or to eat certain kinds of food, or possibly to develop great mental acuteness, and so has led to the establishment of these peculiar small people as a race, without their smallness itself having anything to do with their selection and preservation. In that case smallness would be a " by-product," a " correlated " character, not the " effective life-saving " character. CHAPTER XIX PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS AFTER the last great extension of glaciers in Europe, during which nearly all of Great Britain and the North of France and Germany were buried with Scandinavia under one great ice-sheet and when this ice- sheet had receded, and the climate was like that of the Russian " steppes," cold and dry there were men inhabiting the caverns on both sides of the Pyrenees. The tract of land which we call " Great Britain " was a part of the Continent of Europe. There was no " English Channel." The Thames and the Rhine opened by a common mouth into the North Sea. The mammoth and the hairy rhinoceros still lingered on in France and the more central regions of Europe. Wild horses, the great ox (Aurochs), the bison, ibex, chamois, were abundant, and the thick-nosed Saiga antelope, now confined to the Russian and Asiatic steppes, was present. The most abundant and important animal immediately north of the Pyrenees was the reindeer, The cave-men of France and Central Europe were a fine race living by the chase, and fabricating flint knives and scrapers, fine bone spearheads and harpoons, as well as occupying themselves in carving ivory and reindeer antlers, so as to produce highly artistic representations of the animals around them. They rarely attempted the human face or figure, and when they did were not so successful as in their animal EARLY CARVINGS AND PICTURES 245 work. They also painted on the walls of some of their caverns, with red and yellow ochre, carbon, and white chalk, representations usually about one-third the size of nature of some of the most important animals of the chase. They must have used lamps, fed with animal fat, to illuminate the walls, both when they were at work on the pictures and also afterwards, when they exhibited the finished pictures to the less gifted members of the tribe, as wonderful, even magical, appearances. It is uncertain to what extent races of men succeeded one another or were cotemporaries in this period in Europe, but there is good reason for attributing the cave pictures to an early occupation of the caves by men who also carved, in ivory and stone, small figures of women resem- bling the Hottentot Venus whilst the later occupants made no such statuettes, but carved in relief on bone or engraved it. This was probably not less than 50,000 years ago, and may well have been much more. Earlier than the date of these Reindeer men (the Magdalenians, Solutrians and the Aurignacians*), in the preceding cold, humid period of the glacial extension (probably from 80,000 to I 50,000 years ago) these and other caves were occupied by an inferior race the Neandermen. They could not carve beasts on ivory nor paint, but could make very good and well " dressed " flint weapons, and could make large fires in and about the caves, both to cook their meat and to keep off the wild beasts (lions, bears, and hyenas), who contended with the strange, low-browed Neandermen for the use of the caves as habitations. * A brief account of the skulls and implements of primitive man, with illustrations, is given in the first series of ' Science from an Easy Chair,' published in 1910 by Methuen & Co., but the reader should consult the forthcoming new edition of 'Ancient Hunters ' by Professor Sollas fo'r an extended and well-illustrated account of the successive phases and races of prehistoric mankind. 246 PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS On this side of the Pyrenees the Reindeer men have left some wall-pictures, and new discoveries of great importance in the form of rock carvings of human figures as well as pictures and huge figures of horses, etc., are being made in France as I write these lines. But the best preserved and most numerous wall pictures are those of the cave of Altamira near Santander. These comprise some partially preserved representations in yellow, red, white, and black of the great bison, the wild boar, the horse, and other animals. A group representing some twenty-five or more animals (each about one third the size of nature), irregularly arranged, exists on a part of the roof, and others are found in other parts of the cavern. Among the wall-pictures made by ancient cave- men are numerous drawings of human beings in masks representing animals' heads probably indicating the " dressing-up " in animal masks of priests or medicine- men in the way in which we know to-day is the custom among many savage tribes. Twenty-seven of these "decorated" caverns were known in 1910 eleven in Spain, one in Italy, and fifteen in South and Central France and others are continually being discov- ered. The most careful and critical examination by scientific men leaves no doubt as to the vast antiquity of these paintings, and as to their dating from a time when the animals painted (including in some cases mammoth and rhinoceros, as well as bison, reindeer, wild boar, ibex, red deer, bear, and felines) were existing in the locality. The covering up of some of the drawings (which are partly engraved and partly painted) by earthy deposits and by encrustations of lime, and the presence in the cave deposits of the worked flints and bones characteristic of the Reindeer men, leave no doubt that these pictures are of that immense antiquity which we express by the words