Chapter 2

On the other hand, the bison and the prong-buck are almost extinct in the west. But for the great national parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara and others, carefully guarded, the American deer, elk, and moose would all likewise disappear. Forest-culture, however, is, by the pressure of necessity, attracting, as it ought, a great deal of attention, under the guidance of the government Agricultural Department.

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It seems to work well, better than some expected, to have our national Cabinet enlarged by the introduction to full rank in it of the three new Secretaries, of Agriculture, Education, and Health. The importance of the last named of these is universally acknowledged; as well as the necessity for State Boards of Health in all the States.

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How much sanitation has advanced during the last half century! Human life now averages 50 years in the United States; rather more in England, and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera, likewise, through sanitary improvements, has disappeared from the world, except a score or two of cases annually in the worst crowded villages near the Ganges in India. What a grand triumph of medical art, also, following Jenner's vaccination, and Pasteur's later investigations, is the protection afforded against the dangers of scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough, by inoculation with a modified virus, appropriate to each!

But, more than these, the waste of human life has been abridged by the sweeping reform effected in regard to the abuse of alcohol. That was a grand report made to Congress by the men and women of the "Alcohol Commission" of 1910. It is said to have been principally written by the chairwoman of the Commission, who was then, and continues to be still, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. Local option in nine-tenths of our States, with prohibition of dram-shops everywhere: what a change from a century ago! A man was almost mobbed in Boston the other day for selling liquor to a minor. On being taken before a magistrate, and afterwards tried in court, he was imprisoned for three years. Arrests, fines and imprisonment for selling whiskey by the glass, rather frequent ten years ago in New York, are seldom now heard of. The American people are sober! It looks like a monstrous and incredible folly that we read of, that, once, even otherwise sensible and well-meaning gentlemen would, on occasion, get staggering drunk.

Wines of the finest quality, equal to the best of Europe, are made every year in California, New York, and Missouri; and they are occasionally placed upon the table at entertainments. But it is regarded as an intolerable indecorum for a gentleman to drink more than a single glass, or a lady half a glass, at a time.

There is no doubt that the large and magnificent coffee and cocoa houses (the latter most commended on hygienic grounds), in all our great cities, have made much more practicable the shutting up of the drinking saloons that formerly lined our streets.

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Another great sanitary improvement was the destruction, a few years since, of all the tenement houses of New York and Boston, and the prohibition by law of their re-erection. The mortality of New York was lessened by one-third the very next year after it was done. I am glad to hear that, following this good example, a Citizens' Philanthropic Building Association has bought up most of the ground in the worst parts of the down town Philadelphia suburbs, in order to put up blocks of model lodging-houses there. It seems unfortunate that the terribly destructive fire in Philadelphia in 1890, occurring when all the fireplugs were frozen with zero weather, should have laid waste Arch, Market, Chestnut, and Walnut Streets, rather than those dens of poverty and misery.

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When the new water supply for New York city and the Hudson River towns from the Adirondack region, and those for Philadelphia from the upper Delaware and Perkiomen, are completed, and sewage irrigation relieves the rivers everywhere from pollution, it may be hoped that the yearly mortality of our great communities may be brought down below 15 in 1000; once thought to be the acme of healthfulness.

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Cheapening of food goes on remarkably, along with close and high culture of the ground. Proper appreciation of the share taken by the _atmosphere_ in the nutrition of plants has made soil construction a much simpler and surer thing than formerly. Roof-gardens in towns are very common and successful; half of the vegetables consumed in Baltimore are said to be grown on roofs. I once saw a book entitled "Our Farm of Four Acres;" and another, "Ten Acres Enough." Very little skill should be needed now to enable a frugal family to live _well_ on two or three acres of well-made ground.

_August 20th, 1931._

I bought yesterday a pound of the best grass-flavored adipo-butyrin (as good as any dairy butter) for ten cents; a sirloin of good western beef for twelve cents a pound; and, best of all, a bushel of Rocky-mountain grasshoppers, as crisp and delicious as could be, for only thirty-seven cents! They say, the supply of these last delicacies will be short this season; as hardly any have appeared yet in Kansas or Nebraska. Excursions for procuring them from farther west are, however, quite frequently made.

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I saw an account of the sale of some Southern lands in this morning's paper. The best farm land in Virginia brings 400 to 500 dollars an acre. Some in South Carolina has brought 400 and 500; good Maryland farms 5, 6, and 700 dollars an acre. Manufactories, too, are in active operation in all the old Cotton States. It has happened, as every one might have known would be the case, that when a generation or two had passed after the cessation of slavery, and the old hatreds had been buried in the graves of the men and women who nursed them, prosperity would increase in the South to an extent that could hardly be imagined under the slaveholding régime, the "dark ages" of America.

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How fast arts and inventions are accumulating! The nineteenth century seems likely to be equaled if not surpassed in new material appliances of civilization and luxury. Railroad speed now often reaches ninety miles an hour, upon the straightened and generally elevated tracks in use; with the automatic block-signal system so complete, that collisions are nearly impossible. Coal-oil is now much used in locomotives, and almost universally on ocean steamers. The supposed dangers of its conveyance and employment have been readily met by suitable precautions.

The cable-telephone has been perfected; one can converse directly with a friend or business correspondent in Liverpool, London, or Paris, at the rate of twelve cents a minute. How these things promote terseness and pithiness of speech! I believe no one, unless it be the stockholders of one or two old lines, regrets that all telegraphic and telephonic communication in this country has been taken under the control of the government. Underground laying of telegraph wires is now nearly universal.

Photographing in colors, a French invention, is one of the newer and more attractive arts. Printing one's own books has become almost too easy, by using the type-writer, with sheets of celluloid, warmed to 300°, instead of paper. The celluloid hardens at once sufficiently for stereotyping; so that any number of thousands of copies can be taken from such off-hand plates. Truly, "of making many books there is no end." Pencils, moreover, whose marks are permanent, have so improved as to render that intolerably nasty fluid, ink, unnecessary, and confined in its use entirely to a few old-fashioned people.

_Magnifying sound_ has gone far beyond the microphone and megaphone of the last century. Deaf persons are now helped by instrumental aid almost as much as defective sight is by proper glasses.

Gunpowder and nitro-glycerin have both been utilized for the production of continuous motion, especially in the propulsion of the contents of transportation tubes. By these agencies, all the local letter distribution of Boston and Portland, and a good deal of that of New York, is effected by tube-transmission to and from the various branch deposit-offices of the cities.

Locomotives are at present running, at a speed limited by law, on our best common roads. Several wealthy gentlemen in Philadelphia use small private steam-carriages to go daily between their homes and places of business. The _pocket magneto-electric lamp_ is one of the neatest of modern inventions; and _wiring power_ one of the most tremendous. It is said that the energy of a twenty-horse-power steam engine may be conveyed from place to place as far as 25 or 30 miles, by suitable cable under ground. The only difficulty is to make its management safe, as the least contact with the cable is as destructive as lightning; but this will no doubt soon be done.

With all these ingenuities, no one has yet contrived a really successful flying-machine. Man seems designed by his Creator to remain always "a little lower than the angels" in this prerogative.

It is a good thing to be able to be rid, as we now may be, of dirty anthracite or other coal in our houses. The distribution of heat,--by pipes conveying hydrogen gas for burning in gas-stoves, ranges, or furnaces, by steam, or by hot water,--is provided for on the pipe system, extending under and through houses from large street mains, in most of our cities. I am much pleased also with the method of _floor_ and _wall_-warming now common; although, for the wealthy, an open wood fire is still one of the greatest of all costly luxuries. The uses of coal, moreover, are yet so numerous, that all coal-carrying railroads are earning and paying large dividends.

For the summer time, the "can't get away" Philadelphians may be congratulated on the delightful sea-water baths they can have on Broad Street, in water brought by the great marine aqueduct from Atlantic City. The water is raised from the sea by tidal power (a kind of motor now having many applications) to a reservoir at a sufficient height to give the requisite descent towards the city. Its rate of movement, also, is such that, being under cover all the way, it retains much of the coolness of the ocean-surf.

The blanching or bleaching of the London fogs, by the improved methods of consuming smoke, must be a very fine thing for the dwellers in that overgrown city. We hear, however, of one old lady, a duchess, who thinks the fog now to be very vulgarly pale; and regrets the good old days of what she thought a much more picturesque gloom.

_October 3d, 1931._

I have just walked up from the Public Buildings at Broad and Market Streets, whither I went to read the "City Bulletin" of telegraphic intelligence from all quarters of the world. This is displayed by means of letters thrown by the electric light upon screens on the four sides of the great square tower above the public buildings. On the North side, you can see the latest items of news from Europe; on the East, from Asia; on the South, from South America, Africa, and Australasia; on the West, from all parts of the United States and Territories. The illumination is kept up until 10 o'clock every night.

Of items thrown out this evening, I remember only these: from Europe, that the Pan-Catholic Council of the three historical churches (so called), has decided to admit the precedence, but not the supremacy, of the Pope over the Patriarch of the Greek Church and the Anglican Primate. Between the latter two, the question of relative rank has not yet been decided. From Asia, report comes of a terrible battle between the Persians and the invading Tartar army, in which the latter was defeated, with great loss on both sides. All the European and American ambassadors are instructed to urge the conclusion of this useless but ferocious war. From Africa, we are told of the election of a new President, of Dutch descent, for the South African Federation. Of United States intelligence of to-day, I am most interested to learn that the intercollegiate prize for oratory, at Washington, for which the students of twenty-five colleges competed, has been awarded to Miss Minnie Stephens, a young lady of Atlanta, Georgia.

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The International Weather Signal Service now covers, in its communications, all portions of the globe. Predictions, or at least indications, for three days ahead, are posted daily at Washington (whence they are sent to our other American cities), and at London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Bombay, Calcutta, Canton, Tokio, Cairo, Cape Town, Sydney, Rio Janeiro, Lima, Havana, and Vera Cruz.

What a practical comment upon the uselessness of our petty standing regular army of twenty-five thousand men is the act of Congress just passed, making West Point a school for Signal Service officers, and for training those preparing for Arctic, Antarctic, and Ocean-dredging explorations!

Speaking of institutions of education, the National University has completed its endowment of six million dollars, and has commenced its organization by the appointment of a Board of Directors. It is to be located at Chicago, St. Louis, or Omaha, as the Board shall conclude. For the President of this University, an evening paper rather lightly says: "so much difficulty exists in selecting an individual belonging to this world, combining all the desired requisites, that it is in contemplation to wait (our moon being uninhabited) until one can be obtained from the planet Mars, or possibly Jupiter. The latter will no doubt be best,--as one who can bear the great heat of that planet will be well fitted to meet the fiery criticism to which he will be subjected on all sides."

Industrial and half-time manual-labor schools are now, in the public school systems of our States, getting to be the rule rather than the exception. Astonishing it is, also, to look back to the time, which I can remember, when, instead of the natural and rational method of coeducation of the sexes, now universal (with very few exceptions), it was a common thing for boys and girls, young men and young women, to be educated,--monastery and nunnery fashion,--entirely apart!

_Out-of-door_ schools are a grand improvement of our times. They are the old kindergartens of Pestalozzi and Froebel developed. The best that I know is in West Philadelphia, near the Acclimatarium. In winter, the teachers and children go together for study into the inclosures of the Acclimatarium, for at least three hours every day. In summer, their range is extended through Fairmount Park, and farther, for the same or a longer period. The pupils enter this school at six or seven years of age, and continue the "nature course" until twelve or thirteen. Then they take up, elsewhere, a larger share of book studies; so that they may be, by sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, prepared for college, if desired; and after college, for the Universities.

The degrees of Bachelor and Master of Education, first bestowed by some of the great Western Universities, are now granted also by most of our kindred Eastern institutions.

Everybody is satisfied that the great English Spelling Reform is not going on too fast. Our children are taught the new spelling, the books being, in all the public schools, changed once in ten years. With this gradual transition, under the direction of the Anglo-American Philological Association, we are safely approaching an era of reasonable orthography.

A seemingly extreme rule, but really very good, has lately been passed by the directors of three of the largest public libraries in this country, at the urgency of the Department of Mental Hygiene of the American Social Science Association. It is, that no novels shall be given out on the application of minors; and that only one novel in three months may be taken out in any one stockholder's name.

_December 1st, 1931._

The presidential address at the annual meeting of the Intercontinental Scientific Congress, this year held at Melbourne, Australia, has just been published. I find in it mention of the following, among other, late advances in science.

Proof seems to be accumulating that the suggestion made by Lockyer in 1879, that all the supposed chemical elements are really modifications of the same substance, and that soon after made by others, that this common substance is only _condensed universal ether_, the medium of luminous, electrical, and other vibrations, is going to be accepted as correct. The opinion that the _panæther_, as it is best called, is _not atomic_ in its constitution, while all the combinable elements are so, is also gaining ground.

More exact knowledge being now had of the relations existing among the different so-called elements, it has become possible to work out the atomic theory, so far as to prove that the law of chemical attraction is identical with that of gravitation; namely, that its force is directly in proportion to the number and mass of the atoms, and inversely as the squares of their distances: _atomic distances_ being, by extremely abstruse calculations, approximately estimated. The long wished for full explanation of the relations between frictional electricity, voltaism, magnetism, heat, and light, seems likely soon to be obtained; and, consequently, also the exact physical relations of the vital or formative force of animals and plants.

It is quite well understood that, as Newton himself anticipated, the law of gravitation was but a step, though a very great and important one, in the generalization of cosmic changes and forces. We seem to be on the eve of another advance, needing only the completion of some difficult mathematical and physical analyses,--in which all so-called attractions and repulsions whatever will be resolved into results or phenomena of motion; ethereal, atomic, molecular, and massive motions; whose mutual reactions and momenta make the infinite complexity of the universe. Towards such a conclusion, serviceable contributions were made many years since, by three American cosmologists, Norton, Pliny Chase, and Kirkwood.

The 320th asteroid was discovered at Pike's Peak observatory, during last summer. I may jot down here too, the record of the first observation of a new telescopic comet, last month, by a senior student of Bryn Mawr College for Women.

Australia, according to the address mentioned, has at last furnished to palæontologists the real _missing link_, not between men and apes, which they have generally given up, but between vertebrate and invertebrate animals. So that the famous ascidian mollusc, with a semi-vertebral larval stage, which nourished in the writings of Darwin and others, is no longer needful. The fossil referred to is an ancient fish-like worm, or worm-like fish, to which the name of Entomicthys amphisoma has been provisionally given. It is still more remarkable than the amphioxus or lancelet, which has been long known.

By the improved methods of measuring both space and time in practical astronomy, it has been rendered nearly or quite certain that our earth is gradually approaching the sun; and that the same is true of all the other planets. Small as the rate of this approach is, it is enough to confirm the belief of Sir William Thomson and others in the 19th century, that our solar system is constructed for finite (not, as Laplace and Lagrange thought, infinite) duration; the whole economy of planets will at last run down like a clock, and all the elements will be melted together with fervent heat.

Among the leading discoveries of the year is that of the long-looked-for third moon of the extra-Neptunian planet. The name of that planet itself, although it has been known since 1885, is not yet finally settled. Some call it Pluto; others Terminus; it being almost certainly the outermost body of our solar system.

A good observation of the intra-Mercurial planet Vulcan was made from Mount Everest some weeks ago, by the Hindu astronomer-imperial on duty there.

Of the _corona_ seen around the sun during eclipses, the tendency now seems to be to return to the explanation long ago proposed and discarded; that it is neither telluric, _i.e._ produced by our atmosphere, nor, strictly or only, solar; but mainly _selenic_; that is, caused by the rays of the sun being _diffracted_ around the edge of the moon intervening between us and it. The different appearances of the corona as seen from different places on the earth are thus accounted for, as well as their diversity during different eclipses, by the irregularities upon the lunar surface.

A fine chemical advance has been made in the laboratory of the University of Vienna, in the manufacture, from strictly _inorganic_ materials, and at very moderate and remunerative cost, of the alkaloids quinia, strychnia, atropia, morphia, and others. No chemist, however, has yet made a single speck of albumen, or any other truly protoplasmic substance. By the consent of all biologists, the disproof of the possibility of "spontaneous generation" is as strong as ever.

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How utterly impossible is it for any one to keep up with the science or the literature of the present day! One must have the hundred hands of Briareus, and the hundred eyes of Argus, with brains to suit, to know anything at all worth while, in our age. Happily, it is not expected of us, of anybody, to be Aristotles or Humboldts now.

I like very much the Philadelphia Library Public Reading Course, carried on for the last seven or eight years. The Readers there give, twice every week, summary oral accounts of all that has been last printed in all parts of the world; one hour each evening being given to literature, and another hour to science. Once a month, the latest important books are briefly reviewed. This saves busy people a vast deal of time. The Reader is a sort of animated newspaper and monthly magazine combined.

In social life, the once neglected accomplishment and enjoyment of conversation are coming up again. The "Conversation Club" is a great success. Its members meet once a week, ladies and gentlemen, young and old, single and married, together, at each other's houses, to the number of from fifty to a hundred and fifty; from half past seven or eight, to half past ten sharp, without any of the trouble or expense of food or drink; which it is rationally supposed they have all had or can get at home. Dancing is omitted, and only vocal music is allowed; this being in rooms apart from the main parlors. With those living out of town, afternoon hours are preferred; and only tea, coffee, cocoa, and crackers are placed on side tables for those who come from distant places. Similar _salons_ to these are usual in Paris; one of them occurring on the same evening in the week as ours. Last week, by arrangement, a half hour's telephonic discussion was maintained between Philadelphia and Paris, on the merits of the last two French translations of Longfellow's Poems.

Twice at least in the winter there are yet larger gatherings of the same kind, at our Academy of Natural Sciences, and at the Academy of Fine Arts. In these, 500 or 600 people are commonly assembled; and very pleasant occasions they always are.

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