The Popular Science Monthly, July, 1900 Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRAZES. By Professor G. T. W. PATRICK, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. James M. Crafts, President, 1897–1900. In reviewing the success which this school has attained, the question naturally presents itself: To what is this success due? Let me here record my conviction that it has been due mainly to the courage and devotion of its corporation and of the presidents who have directed its policy. In this respect no institution was ever more fortunate. With a guiding body possessed of the courage and faith that have animated the corporation of the institution from the earliest days, and especially with the able men who have been its presidents, success was assured. While the school was yet struggling for its very existence, with few friends and little money, they never faltered. They have not hesitated again and again to plunge the school deeply into debt when its needs required it, trusting to the generosity of New England that it should not be allowed to be crippled, and each time has their confidence been justified. Poverty has never been permitted to impair the efficiency of the school. As President Crafts remarked in a recent annual report, “We are less favored than many neighboring institutions in building space, but we have always followed the wise policy of keeping in the foremost rank and in some departments leading the way in supplying the best methods and apparatus for teaching and for making investigation. We have run in debt to buy them, and run still further in debt to build houses to hold them, but we have always had them when the head of a department told the government of the school that they were necessary to the most efficient teaching of his science.” With a corporation acting on such a principle there could be no failure. It is true that the faculty have stood unfalteringly, even in the darkest days, for high scholarship; and equally true that the school has been remarkably fortunate in the character of the young men who have sought its halls, but no faculty and no body of students could have brought success with a corporation less broadminded and courageous. Let me here add my tribute to the work which was done by the late General Francis A. Walker, president of the institute from 1881 till 1897. Probably no single person did more to secure the success of the school than he. His great administrative ability, his wide acquaintance, his accurate judgment of men, his magnificent courage and his splendid enthusiasm, were factors in the development of the school whose importance it is difficult to overestimate. General Walker was succeeded by President James M. Crafts, who had been connected with the Institute for many years as professor of chemistry, and under whose energetic administration the progress of the Institute has been steadily continued. In fact, thanks to some unexpected additions to the funds of the school, its material resources and its equipment have been more enlarged and extended during the past three years than in many years previous. Only a few months ago, however, President Crafts, desiring to devote himself more uninterruptedly to the pursuit of the science which first awakened his enthusiasm and in which he has attained such eminent distinction, both in this country and abroad, decided to relinquish his office. The corporation has chosen as his successor, Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, for many years professor of astronomy in Washington University, St. Louis, and for the past few years superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey at Washington. A more fortunate selection could not have been made, and the well-known scientific and administrative ability of Dr. Pritchett will no doubt be the means not only of maintaining the present high reputation of the school, but of extending and enlarging it. Unfortunately, the Institute is still unendowed in the sense that its receipts from invested property constitute but a very small part of the means required to carry on the school. To quote from one of President Walker’s reports, “No other institution of our size but has two, three or four times the amount of wealth to draw upon which we possess. It has only been exceeding good fortune, combined with extreme courage, energy and self-devotion on the part of its trustees and teachers that has more than once rescued the school from paralysis, if not from extinction.” In 1898–’99, the total expenditures of the school were about $367,500, while the current receipts were about $347,500, showing a deficit of about $20,000. Of the current receipts, $207,000, or 59 per cent, were from students’ fees. Dividing the total expenditures by the number of students, we find an expenditure of $314 per student, without counting interest on the value of land and buildings, while the tuition fee is $200. The invested funds of the Institute amount to but $1,917,000. All gifts and legacies, with the exception of this amount, have had to go into land, buildings and equipment. Between 1888 and 1899 the Institute has been obliged to spend $350,000 for land, the purchase of which has been a great burden, and within a few years a further expenditure of $260,000 in this direction has been made. Henry S. Pritchett, President-Elect of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The bearing of these figures will perhaps be realized by comparing them with similar figures regarding Cornell University, which is largely a technical school, since nearly one half of its students pursue technical courses similar to those in the Institute. In 1898 the total income of that university was $583,000, of which about $121,000, or only 20 per cent, was received from tuition fees. Its invested funds amounted to $6,446,818. The State has generously given aid to the Institute in some of its most trying times; as in 1888, when it gave $200,000, one half unconditionally and the other half for the support of free scholarships; and again in 1895, when it granted unconditionally $25,000 a year for six years and $2,000 a year additional for scholarships. Although the school has a very inadequate endowment, yet the future looks bright. It is significant of the general appreciation of its work that men and women who have not received a technical education have devoted a large part of their fortunes to providing such education for others. Among the recent benefactors of the Institute we may name Henry L. Pierce, John W. Randall, Mrs. Julia B. Huntington James and Edward Austin, who, within less than three years have bequeathed nearly a million and a half dollars to the school. If the large gifts of recent years are continued, the school will before long be put financially upon a level with its neighbors. May we not hope that as the applications of science to the arts enrich the alumni and friends of the Institute, they may help to make the road easy for their successors by devoting a part of their riches to the advancement of technical education? THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRAZES. By Professor G. T. W. PATRICK , UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. A well-known Washington newspaper correspondent, writing of the recent Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution and its disorderly meetings, says: “It is the unanimous opinion of those who have attended the congress that, while the Daughters of the American Revolution, individually, are nearly all intellectual, refined and attractive women, collectively they are an uncontrollable mob.” Why is the social conduct of human beings different from their conduct as individuals? This is the problem of the new science of social psychology. The following study of crazes and epidemics is offered as a slight contribution to this science. By way of preface it might be said that a good deal of the confusion as to the subject matter of social psychology would be avoided if it were understood that this science is not the study of any mysterious entity called ‘the social mind,’ nor the mere study of those individual traits that make men social beings, such as imitation and suggestibility; but rather the study of the peculiar and characteristic behavior of the mind of the individual when under the influence of the social afflatus. Under this influence we do indeed find that he becomes a different being, and that his mental processes must be formulated by different laws; and we are convinced that, as thus understood, social psychology is just as distinct and legitimate a branch of study as is the psychology of the child or the psychology of sex. Now, in what ways is the behavior of man as a social being different from his behavior as an individual? To answer this question in part, let us examine his behavior in mental epidemics and crazes. I select these because they illustrate in somewhat extreme form the influence of the social afflatus. If, for the sake of comparison, we first consider the normal individual as such, we find that he is a perceiving, remembering, associating, judging, reflecting, reasoning being; that he is subject to certain feelings, emotions, desires and impulses, prompting him to action; that his action is more or less deliberative, and, when it finally occurs, is the result of a set of motives determined by the man’s character, which in turn is the outcome of his heredity and education and his general ability to appreciate and reflect the moral ideals of the social order to which he belongs. If now we study this man in respect to his mental development, whether from the savage or the child, we find that the direction of change has been away from imitative, impulsive action, towards thought, reflection, deliberation. He continually makes more use of memory and, anticipating the future, regulates his action in the light of his past experience. This change from the imitative and impulsive to the reasoning man accompanies the development of the higher brain centers, particularly of the cerebral cortex, upon which depend the all-important functions of memory and association. As an experiment it is quite possible to reduce this highly developed reasoning being in a single moment to a condition resembling his primitive state by means of hypnotism. In hypnosis there is a temporary paralysis or sleep of the higher brain centers, upon which depends deliberative, rational action, and, the lower (older) centers alone being active, the subject becomes a mere ideo-motor machine acting out every suggestion. In various related states of automatism, where there is any spontaneity at all, the mentality and morality of the subject are of a lower type and may be called reversionary in character, owing, no doubt, to the fact that those brain centers which represent the most recent acquirements of the race are temporarily out of the circuit. If again we study the mind of the child, we find that it presents many points of likeness to the mind of the hypnotic subject and to the mind of the primitive man. We learn from biology that the child is to some extent a recapitulation of the life of the race, passing through in his individual development the stages of race development. Physiologically speaking, the higher brain centers and the centers for association, which are late acquirements of the race, are last developed in the child. We are therefore not surprised to find that the child, like the savage and the hypnotic subject, is imitative, impulsive, non-reflective, incapable of much abstract thought, deliberation or reasoning, and that he acts with a view to immediate rather than remote ends. If now we turn to the behavior of the normal adult man in mental epidemics and crazes of all kinds, from the Crusades to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, from the tulip mania in Holland to the Dewey welcome in New York City, we observe that his behavior is to some extent similar to that of the hypnotic subject, and the child, and the primitive man. The general character of mental action in epidemics is as follows: Men become imitative beings and their actions are determined by suggestion from the actions of others. Memory and the association of ideas are inactive, and there is an inability to reason and an indisposition towards deliberation and calm reflection. Past experiences are disregarded, remote consequences are not seen and behavior is impulsive and spasmodic. Feeling is very strong and every kind of emotion is apt to be exaggerated. Calm observation is also lacking and mental images may be mistaken for objective reality, as in the case of the hallucinations that are frequent in these phenomena. The moral peculiarities of an epidemic are of a similar kind. Under the influence of a craze, the moral character of a people suffers a reversion to a primitive type. In times of epidemic waves the moral standards of the crowd approach those of the savage. We observe the exhibition of primitive instincts, such as cruelty, revenge and blood-thirstiness, together with changeableness, fanaticism, self-sacrifice and enthusiastic devotion to a leader. All these moral traits were well illustrated in the Revolution crazes in France and in the persecution of witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Even in our own times a striking example of the primitive character of the morality of a people under the influence of social excitement was seen in the battle-cry of our American sailors in the recent Spanish war, ‘Remember the Maine,’ the ethical motive being a precipitate impulse to seek revenge. An instance like this can not be explained upon the theory that it represented the actual individual morality of the sailors participating in the battles, for it was echoed and apparently endorsed by the press throughout the country and upon the platform and even in the pulpit. It is hardly conceivable that an Englishman of noble birth should openly boast of his joy in being revenged upon an enemy; yet collective England is wild with delight when ‘Majuba Hill is avenged!’ We are thus led apparently to the theory that, for some reason not yet evident, under the influence of social excitement, something takes place in the brain of the individual not unlike the action of hypnotism, by which the higher centers representing the more recent moral and mental acquirements of the race are temporarily paralyzed, reducing the subject in a greater or less degree to the condition of the child and of the primitive man. The observation of certain physical phenomena which often accompany mental epidemics tends to confirm this theory and at the same time to suggest a possible explanation. Epidemics of the more extreme kind are apt to be accompanied by great muscular excitability, varying all the way from mere extreme mobility, such as shouting, jumping and throwing the arms, to convulsions like those of epilepsy. The dancing manias of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries furnish the best illustrations of this, although these phenomena did not equal in intensity the frightful physical convulsions during the religious revivals in Kentucky at the beginning of this century. The particular character of these muscular movements is determined by imitation and suggestion. The movements themselves are no doubt due to congestion and irritation of the motor centers, or at least to a rapid overflow of nervous discharges at these centers, an accompaniment of the excessive emotion which attends all mental epidemics. In such a condition of the nervous system, thought, reasoning, memory and association can have little place, or, to express it physiologically, the unusual excitement in the lower centers of the brain accompanying excessive emotion may not only find expression in muscular movements, but may also exercise an inhibitory or paralyzing effect upon the higher centers, resulting in a kind of hypnotic condition. Neither is it difficult to understand the presence of this excessive emotion during mental epidemics or during any purely social movements, when we remember that war itself is the great original social movement, which even in this age always takes the form of a mental epidemic called the war spirit. The emotional effect of the mere physical congregation of a large number of men, the emotion increasing with the size of the assemblage, is known to all. As we glance now at a few of the typical mental epidemics of history, we shall notice the ever-recurring presence of some or all of the mental and moral traits that I have pointed out. For illustrations of these phenomena we may turn indifferently to ancient, medieval or modern history. They abound at every period. Very good examples may be found in Hecker’s ‘Epidemics of the Middle Ages.’ In the Crusades, particularly in the Children’s Crusades, we may observe all the mental, moral and physical peculiarities that have been mentioned. In the anti-Semitic mania, we see in its history of criminal horror the dehumanizing effects of the epidemic and the moral reversion which takes place under the influence of social excitement. The peculiar physical phenomena which have been referred to as characterizing epidemic excitement are best illustrated in the dancing manias of the Middle Ages and in the religious revival. Although epidemic ‘revivals’ have occurred in all countries, some of the best illustrations are seen in America in its early history and to some extent at the present day. At the time of the elder Edwards, revivals were accompanied by fainting, falling, tremor and numbness. In the Kentucky revivals the meetings, called camp meetings, were held in the open air. The interest in them spread in true epidemic form. At the height of the excitement, as many as 20,000 people, men, women and children, were gathered in a single camp at one time. Dr. Davidson, who writes a history of this revival, says that “the laborer quitted his task, age snatched his crutch, youth forgot his pastime, the plough was left in the furrow, business of all kinds was suspended, bold hunters and sober matrons, young men, maidens and little children flocked to the common center of attraction.” The emotional tension was very great. A boy perhaps would spring to his feet and begin to rave, or some over-excited person would utter a piercing shriek, or a cry of triumph, and this would be the signal for a general hysterical outbreak, accompanied by many remarkable physical symptoms. Of these the most common were falling in convulsive spasms, jerking, dancing, barking like dogs, fainting, crying, singing, praying and cursing. Sometimes whole companies were seized with uncontrollable laughing fits, called the holy laugh. At a meeting in East Tennessee, six hundred began jerking at one time. In many instances sensibility would be lost and the extremities would be cold, while the face was flushed. In some places the sufferers were laid out in rows and squares in the churchyard until they should recover. From a medical point of view we should call this epidemic chorea, but its more exact physiology I have already referred to. When closely examined, the phenomena lose a part at least of their mysterious character. We must remember that religious emotions are powerful, deep and ancient. The effect, furthermore, is increased by the general epidemic excitement, by the element of large and unwonted gatherings of people, by imitation, by the stimulating music and by the fearfully exciting power of human shrieks and wild cries and prayers. Such a nervous condition induced in an individual must have two results: first, the escape of the unusual nervous excitement in motor channels, giving rise to the choreic movements; and second, the paralysis of the higher brain centers, resulting in various hypnotic phenomena and reversionary morality and mentality. Many of these scenes were repeated in the great revival that swept New York and the Middle States, beginning in the year 1832. In these meetings preachers who kept cool and reasoned logically were not listened to. There was rather a demand for the wild, impetuous, vociferous, physically impassioned oratory of the rude man. As an example of reversionary morals in this epidemic, we may notice the fact mentioned by Albert Rhodes that in response to visions many men put away their own wives and took others from their neighbors. From the psychological point of view perhaps the most instructive of all epidemics is the demonophobia or witchcraft mania which raged from the end of the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth centuries. The savage’s fear of demons and of unseen supernatural agencies lurking in every forest and moor now took hold of the modern world and turned the people, not into brutes and devils as we figuratively say, but simply into the original savages from which they came, whose basal instincts they still carried in their lower nervous centers, to be brought out under the influence of a social craze. The ecclesiastical authorities, both Roman and Protestant, led in this homicidal frenzy, while sedate judges, learned jurors and wise legislators lent their zealous aid. It spread in true epidemic form all over the Continent and into England and Scotland, even to America. Distinguished jurists declared that ordinary methods of trial should not be used for this offence, for so difficult is it to bring proof of the crime of witchcraft, that out of a million of witches not one could be convicted if the usual course of justice were followed. One contemporary of undoubted authority wrote that he saw a list of three thousand witches that had been put to death during the time of the Long Parliament alone. In this reign of demonophobia the psychological phenomena of the craze are well illustrated. The exciting cause was a widespread contagious and epidemic fear. The result was a recrudescence of the barbaric instincts of cruelty, torture and homicide, accompanied by a loss not merely of reasoning power, but apparently of common sense, so that intelligent men seemed to believe that old women blasted the crops in the fields and the offspring of animals, and raised storms and whirlwinds. The cruelty characteristic of the savage is again noticed in this case. In the witchcraft persecutions, the victims were commonly weak women, particularly the more helpless old and young, while the character of the inflictions was such as is peculiar to primitive people, viz., torture and burning alive. The perfidy of the savage is also noticed, as in innumerable instances the victims were led to believe that they would be spared if they made a confession, and were then put to death. To elude a legal requirement that torture should not be repeated, the most horrible tortures were ‘continued’ from day to day. The psychology of crazes is clearly seen in certain of its aspects in the homicidal manias that have swept over communities or whole countries at frequent intervals in the world’s history. The homicidal impulse itself is one of the most primitive and basal of all impulses. The reason for this is apparent. The history of man has been a history of warfare and of struggle for existence. It has been man against man, tribe against tribe, nation against nation. Habits like these are not quickly unlearned, and reversion to them in times of social disturbance is not strange. In the massacre of St. Bartholomew we have a typical instance of the homicidal mania. The necessary conditions were, first, great emotional excitement caused by religious fanaticism acting as an inhibitory agent upon the higher brain centers and allowing the primitive impulses to act unchecked; second, the removal of external and customary restraints, effected in this case by the royal decree; and third, the mental effects of imitation and suggestion. These conditions being all supplied, the French people resolved themselves speedily into assassins and cut-throats, and enjoyed a homicidal debauch. Begun in Paris, the massacre spread in true epidemic form throughout France, until fifteen or twenty thousand people had perished. These homicidal manias have, of course, been very frequent in history. The decivilizing influence of the craze is, however, most perfectly illustrated in the various scenes of the French Revolution. Here the overturning of the social and religious order itself acted in part as the unsettling and emotionally exciting cause. The usual results followed. The effect of social excitement in paralyzing the intellect was shown in this case in the wholesale and useless destruction of women and children. Furthermore, this reversion to the manners of the savage carries with it its appropriate mood. The slaughterers are not like demons, as we imagine demons to be, but rather like thoughtless children. There is merriment and much gayety, and there is dancing and singing around the corpses, and seats are arranged for the ladies, who are eager to enjoy the spectacle; and finally the victims are made to pass through a double row of executioners, who carve them into pieces gradually, so that all can saturate themselves with the sight of the bloodshed. Although in some cases wars may be coolly planned by the people’s leaders for personal or political reasons or for purposes of national conquest, still they all depend for their successful issue upon the homicidal impulse in the masses of people. This is called the war spirit and is always of an epidemic character. It may have any degree of ferocity or mildness. It has a tendency to be periodic, so that if it has slumbered for a considerable period a very slight cause is sufficient to awaken it. A mere boundary line in Venezuela, in which this country had but a remote interest, was sufficient a few years ago to excite this war spirit in a milder form, when a curious craze for a war with Great Britain flowed like a wave across this country. Any war will furnish instructive material to the student of social psychology. In the late Spanish-American war, for instance, we all felt the war spirit which flowed in epidemic form across the country and engulfed it. The first motive of the war, the altruistic desire to free an oppressed people, was of the ideal glittering kind, well fitted to excite the emotions of the masses. A dramatic event further fans this emotional flame, and at once the aggregate personality of the nation is in a condition of automatism, where primitive instincts, such as revenge and lust for the paraphernalia of war, are no longer checked by the more lately acquired moral principles. Congressmen, editors, members of peace societies, ministers of the gospel, forget their long and patient efforts to establish means for settling national differences by arbitration and join lustily in the war cry, and the psychologically curious spectacle is presented of a great nation, priding itself as a leader in the world’s morals, giving to the appeal of a weaker nation for the arbitration of a dispute the answer of shot and shell. Although the motive of blood for blood is a moral motive belonging to a bygone age and in individual ethics has long been outgrown, yet collectively, under the influence of the war craze, we revert to it, and it is shamelessly proclaimed from platform and editorial room and vigorously applauded by the people. We have seen that cruelty and the persecution of the weak by the strong were among the reversionary symptoms of the social epidemic in many instances. We may notice curiously enough a trace of these qualities here, where the fact that our enemy was a greatly inferior power does not detract in our eyes from the brilliancy of our victories, though in the ethics of the individual such a circumstance would put us to shame. In all this we proceed strictly in accordance with international law, but international law itself is only international custom and is the mere expression of the wonted behavior of the aggregate personality, particularly in times of war. As such it does not represent the highest ethical development of man, but that lower stage of development to which he reverts in times of social excitement. From this point of view it is possible to understand why international ethics is so far behind individual ethics. Personal disputes were once settled by brute force as international disputes are now settled. There is no reason to doubt that the latter will, somewhat later in the history of civilization, be settled by courts of arbitration and enforced by a system of police as the former now are. The considerations now before us show the futility of peace congresses in that part of their work which contemplates the enforced substitution of arbitration for war. Peace congresses are not social movements. They spring from the efforts of individual men, leaders in social reform. They belong to the upward ethical movements led by individuals, the slow, painful climbing towards higher moral and intellectual standards. These congresses may meet and discuss arbitration and perfect an international program, but they labor in vain, for they forget that social man has a double personality and that the personality that meets and deliberates in the peace congress is not the personality that, under the influence of the war craze, thrills with emotion and acts from ancient and deep rooted impulses and motives. When the war spirit sweeps over a country the social personality passes into a condition not unlike that of hypnosis and is ruled by a different set of moral principles. It should not be understood from this that peace congresses are useless. They are a part of an educative system whose influence in the end will be strong enough to react upon the secondary social personality and determine its behavior. Among crazes of a different kind, we may notice financial crazes as an interesting type, falling under the same laws as those mentioned. Both in panics and in speculative manias we observe again a species of hypnotization. In the case of the latter the ordinary business shrewdness which characterizes the dealings of the individual in a normal state and which depends upon the activity of late developed association tracts in the brain, is to a large extent lost. The memory is impaired and what in general we may call prudence is lacking. The psychology of the speculative mania is very simple. There is first, greed, furnishing the necessary emotional excitement; then imitation; then precipitate, unreasoning action. In the panic, the psychological sequence is the same, except that fear takes the place of greed. The stampede among animals may be taken as the type of all panics. It is a reflex phenomenon consisting merely of contagious fear and precipitate, unintelligent flight. Fear and flight constitute a most primitive form of mental action, equalled in primitive character only by that other form whose survival we have seen illustrated in wars and homicidal manias, viz., anger and combat. Although the individual has long outgrown these simple reflexes, yet in social excitement he reverts to them. The recrudescence of the first of these two forms is seen in the case of panics in theatres and burning buildings, where social fear is followed by unintelligent flight, there being a temporary paralysis of reason, prudence, the power of choosing means to ends, respect for women and consideration for the weak and feeble. The limits of this paper permit me only to refer to other forms of the craze illustrating the same laws. In fads and fashions of all kinds, the behavior of the social personality is different only in degree from that already described in the more serious epidemics. The law of imitation is the same, but there is less excitement and emotional disturbance and consequently a lesser paralysis of the higher mental faculties and a lesser return to barbaric impulses. Whereas the others may be called forms of social paranoia, these may be called forms of social monomania. A single idea fills the public mind, and as a result this idea is unduly exalted as to its importance and worth. The higher mental powers are paralyzed only so far as that there is a perverted judgment as to the relative importance of things and consequently a more or less distorted view of the world and its values. Perhaps the simplest form of this craze is seen in the epidemic character of children’s games. At different times of the season different games completely fill the social consciousness of the child-world, so that for the moment there is no interest in any other game. New and interesting sports, such, for instance, as golf, often fill the social adult consciousness in the same way. Then there are social and literary fads, crazes in musical airs, fashions in dress, furniture, houses and carriages, without number. Crazes of all kinds have found a prolific soil in America. The American mind is highly suggestible. One fad after another rages over the country and in some cases reduces the aggregate mind to a condition of idiocy. The Dewey craze in New York City last year is an illustration of this. Nothing but a sort of hypnotic distortion of intellectual vision could cause grown men to stand in line for an hour in order that they might sit for an instant in the chair in which the hero sat during the review, or to fight for shreds of the flags and awnings that decorated the platform. Sporadic social reform movements take the form of crazes and illustrate the same laws. One recalls the Woman’s Crusade in 1873, the result not of a rational plan but of imitation, and the Granger movement and the Farmers’ Alliance and the greenback craze and the silver craze and many others. Since Aristotle we have been told that man is a social animal and that to study him as he really is we must not isolate him from society. The evident truth of this may lead us to forget that it is but a half truth and the uncritical acceptance of it will lead us wholly astray in our sociological study. The inference which we seem compelled to draw from studies in social psychology is that social man is, in his ethical and intellectual development, many stages behind the individual man. The progress of civilization is a slow, painful, upward climbing, in which individuals are the thinkers, the planners, the promoters and the leaders. The mind of society, on the other hand, using the phrase in the sense defined, is an imitative, unreflective, half-hypnotic, half-barbaric mind, always acting as a drag upon the upward and forward movement, and, in times of crazes, epidemics and social cataclysms, gaining temporary dominance and causing disastrous relapses to a lower plane of civilization. SOME PHASES OF THE EARTH’S DEVELOPMENT IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT CHEMICAL RESEARCH. By Professor EDWARD RENOUF. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. In the following pages an effort is made to apply some of the results of recent chemical research to the earlier history of the earth. It is hoped that the main facts brought out may be readily grasped by those who have never studied chemistry, and that each link in the chain of events will be made evident to those who have mastered the rudiments of this science. Chemical action involves change of composition. Substances more or less complex may be broken down into simpler substances, or from several simpler substances a complex substance may be built up. From the complex ore of copper found in nature the simple element copper is obtained. From the elements sulphur and oxygen and the simple substance water the complex sulphuric acid is built up. Within the last few years the high temperature of the electric arc—the heat generated by a powerful electric current playing between two carbon poles—has been employed in bringing about chemical changes which do not occur at ordinary temperatures nor at those obtainable by burning fuel. The electric furnace is used industrially to make calcium carbide from lime and coke, carbon silicide (carborundum) from coke and sand, and the metal aluminum from its compounds. Chemical changes at high temperatures have long been an object of research, but it was not until the introduction of the electric furnace that it was possible to command temperatures high enough to make exhaustive studies. In the last few years several chemists, especially Moissan, of Paris, and his pupils, have done systematic work with the aid of the arc furnace. The furnace used in the laboratory for high temperature work is a small and simple apparatus; Moissan’s furnace is a block of quick lime a little longer and wider than a page of this magazine and about three inches thick. A rectangular cavity is cut on the upper surface of this block. A similar block forms the cover. In opposite grooves between the top and bottom piece are placed the carbons, such as are used in ordinary arc lights. The arc plays across the cavity in such a manner that the substance to be heated is not brought into the arc itself, which is vaporized carbon, but below it. The cavity thus represents a tiny reverberatory furnace; the arc heats the roof and sides to an intense heat, which is radiated on the open dish or closed crucible or tube containing the substance heated. This is the simplest form of laboratory furnace. Various modifications are used, but in all the size is small and the arrangement simple. A powerful arc plays in the smallest possible cavity with the object of attaining the maximum of temperature, expense and duration of material being secondary considerations. Lime and magnesia are the best materials, because they are at the same time the most refractory substances available and are poor conductors of heat. A furnace top one and one half inches thick may be heated by so powerful an arc that the melted quick lime drips from the inner surface, while the outer surface is scarcely warm to the touch of the hand. Moissan has utilized in these little furnaces currents of electricity of varied strength, the lowest being that given by a four horse-power dynamo, the highest that generated by three hundred horse power. The highest temperatures obtained were about 3,500° centigrade (6,300° Fahrenheit), with the heat constantly increasing; the limit to the obtainable temperature—as far as the experimental evidence showed—was merely the lack of any known substance refractory enough to bear the heat; for at the temperature mentioned quick lime and magnesia not only melt but are changed into gases, so that the furnace was filled with the vapors of its own material. The effect of the heat on single substances is very interesting. Refractory metals, such as iron, manganese, uranium, platinum, melt rapidly and then become gaseous; the most refractory non-metallic elements, silicon, boron, carbon, are also changed into the gaseous form. Very refractory compounds are broken down into simpler ones. Magnesium pyrophosphate yields phosphorus, magnesium oxide and oxygen. Asbestos—a magnesium silicate—gives as chief product magnesium silicide; the other substances formed being silicon, silicon dioxide and a little magnesium oxide. Such are the astounding changes wrought by simple heat upon those substances which we are accustomed to regard as infusible. It must be remembered that the range of temperature which chemists employ in ordinary laboratory work is not very great and that the conditions of work in the laboratory and of nature’s work on the earth’s surface at the present day favor the formation of two classes of compounds—the oxides and their hydrates. Although air is a mixture consisting mainly of four parts of nitrogen and one of oxygen, atmospheric nitrogen is generally inert at ordinary temperatures, and it is the oxygen of the air which is the more important factor in the growth of living things and in changes in lifeless matter. Water, a compound of oxygen and hydrogen, is present everywhere, either in the liquid form or as vapor in the air; even in the flame of the hottest fires there is water vapor in abundance, since water is one of the chief products of combustion of most forms of fuel. Is it a wonder that under such conditions we find the earth’s crust to contain the elements chiefly compounded with oxygen? Was this always so? Are we justified in supposing that conditions may have prevailed—nay, must have prevailed—in former times on the earth’s surface, which gave to other elements as important or more important functions than to oxygen? The answer to these questions must be sought in the results of the chemistry of high temperatures. First let us consider the conditions of existence of the omnipresent water. Water begins to break down into its components, hydrogen and oxygen, at 934° centigrade; at 2,500° centigrade (4,500° Fahrenheit) the decomposition is complete. In other words, water vapor cannot exist at temperatures above 2,500°, but the hydrogen and oxygen exist in the free state. Astronomers tell us that refractory elements like iron, silicon and carbon, perhaps disassociated into still simpler substances, are present as vapor in the atmosphere of the sun and that many others of our well-known elements, including hydrogen, are also present in this glowing atmosphere, while the heat of the sun’s surface and that of the hotter stars is vastly higher than that of the electric furnace. Geologists believe that the evidence at their disposal points to a similar period of great heat in the early history of the earth. It may be considered, then, that temperatures higher than those of the electric furnace prevailed in former times on the earth’s surface. Let us now return to the study of the results obtained with the electric furnace. The following reactions are especially important. If metals, or refractory non-metals, or metallic or non-metallic oxides, or complex silicates, are heated to the higher temperatures in contact with carbon, boron, silicon or compounds of these three elements with oxygen, the result generally is that very refractory carbides, borides or silicides of the metals or non-metals are formed. In other words, those complex substances which form the chief constituents of the outer crust of the earth at the present day are decomposed at high temperatures, and simple compounds of two elements—so-called binary compounds—are formed. Four classes of these binary substances seem to be especially stable at high heat—the carbides, borides, silicides and oxides; but the oxygen of the metallic oxides tends to pass off as an oxide of carbon, if carbon be present. At somewhat lower temperatures nitrogen is very active and the nitrides of many metals are readily formed. An excellent example is shown by heating a mixture of carbon and of an oxide of titanium (titanic acid). When heated by a feeble current the acid is simply reduced, forming a lower oxide of titanium; with a more powerful current the mass is completely changed into the nitride of titanium, the nitrogen coming from the air; with a very powerful current this is changed into pure carbide, as the nitride cannot exist at the higher temperature, and the nitrogen escapes, carbon taking its place. At still higher temperatures hydrogen acts on many metals, forming hydrides. The carbides and other compounds of some metals are not stable at high temperatures, being reduced by gaseous carbon to the free metals, which remain then in the gaseous form. At that period of the earth’s history when the temperature was as high as that easily obtained in the electric furnace, we have the sanction of geologists for picturing the earth’s surface as an ocean of molten matter surrounded by a glowing atmosphere. This molten surface must have consisted of binary compounds such as those mentioned above, and probably contained some refractory elements, metals and non-metals, in the free state. The atmosphere contained free hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, gaseous binary compounds like the oxides of carbon, metals in the gaseous form and many non-metallic elements like sulphur and chlorine. In the atmospheric region furthest removed from the molten surface violent chemical reactions occurred between the heated elements, forming compounds which were again dissipated into their elements by the heat given off in the act of formation or radiated from the glowing surface below. Under the enormous pressure of this atmosphere the liquid surface of the earth solidified at very high temperature. Whether the earth’s mass solidified from the centre outward or by forming a solid crust over a liquid interior, is a question to be decided by physicists and geologists. We will consider only the outer crust and the atmosphere. As the surface and the atmosphere above it gradually cooled, the formation of nitrides, and later of hydrides, sulphides and chlorides, occurred. The conditions now attained may have been fairly stable as long as the temperature of the surface and lower regions of the atmosphere were high enough to prevent the union of the atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen, or to decompose the water forming in the outer regions of the atmosphere. As soon, however, as by further cooling, water came into contact with the earth’s surface, very violent reactions occurred, which were supplemented by other equally violent reactions when the cooling process permitted the formation of the ordinary mineral acids. The reactions of water and of acids on many of the binary compounds are so important in determining the present composition of the earth’s crust that they must be considered in detail. The carbides, nitrides, chlorides, sulphides and hydrides of most elements, and some silicides, are decomposed by water, or else by dilute acids, forming the hydrogen compounds of carbon, nitrogen, chlorine, sulphur and silicon respectively, and the oxide or hydroxide of the other element. Thus calcium carbide and water give calcium hydroxide and acetylene, a hydro-carbon. Aluminum carbide yields alumina and methane (marsh gas), another hydro-carbon, the chief constituent of ‘natural gas.’ Other carbides yield crude petroleum. The nitrides yield ammonia, which is the hydrogen composed of nitrogen. The chlorides give hydrochloric acid, the sulphides sulphuretted hydrogen and the silicides the hydrogen silicide. The metallic hydrides yield free hydrogen. The violence and the magnitude of some of these reactions almost baffle the imagination. Let the reader drop a piece of calcium carbide as large as a small marble into a little water in a cup; there is a rapid action, a gas (acetylene) is given off, which burns with a smoky flame if a lighted match is held over the cup. (The experiment should be tried in the open air.) So much heat is generated in the reaction that the cup becomes hot. Nearly four per cent. of the earth’s outer crust is calcium; all this was at this period of the earth’s history in the form of carbide. Imagine all the vast limestone mountain ranges of the present day as carbide, and try to realize the effect when water fell on any considerable area. The heat generated would be so enormous that in a moment the acetylene would ignite and burn, forming oxides of carbon and water vapor, which would in turn decompose, throwing the jets of glowing hydrogen and oxygen vast distances into the atmosphere, there to cool and reunite to water. The decomposition of other carbides, of the hydrides and silicides, as well as the formation of hydroxides by the action of the lighter metals on water, would produce similar phenomena, as the substances formed are combustible gases, or liquids or solids easily volatilized. This is no wild fantasy, but a conservative statement. Similar reactions are taking place at the present day in those stars whose cooling process has advanced far enough; a case in point is that of the so-called ‘temporary stars.’ Extremely violent reactions are taking place constantly in the atmosphere of the sun. The sun’s chromosphere, or outer layer of its atmosphere, consists mainly of hydrogen, and jets of glowing hydrogen are thrown to great heights above the chromosphere; these jets or ‘prominences’ have been frequently observed to have a height of 100,000 miles, and prominences of more than double this height are reported by observers. The most conservative estimates assume temperatures of the sun’s surface so enormous that that of the electric furnace is insignificant in comparison, and we can have no conception of the chemical changes occurring under such conditions. Whether one believes, with Lockyer, that the chemical ‘elements’ are disassociated by the sun’s heat into simpler substances or not, it is clear that very violent chemical reactions are in progress, and if we realize that the known chemical reactions increase in intensity with increase in temperature, it does not seem strange that at the sun’s temperature the reactions occurring should cause disturbances like those observed. Returning to the earth, let us consider the products of these violent reactions. The hydrogen and hydrides of boron, silicon, sulphur and carbon, combined with the oxygen of the atmosphere, forming water and boric, silicic, sulphurous and carbonic acids, which in turn acted on the metallic oxides and hydroxides, forming sulphites, carbonates, borates and simple and complex silicates; some quickly, some slowly, some at low temperatures and atmospheric pressure, others at high temperatures in liquid or semi-liquid condition and under the pressure of rock masses above. To determine the relative age of existing rock layers, or the mode of their formation, whether by eruptive action, by surface heat, by deposition of finely divided material under water, or by metamorphic changes of the cooled silicate under subsequent action of water, pressure and heat, is the province of the geologist. The present writer refrains from an opinion whether any of the first formed solid crust could or could not survive to the present day in its primary form, considering the exposure to water, acids, heat and pressure which it suffered. Yet an idea may be formed of the condition of the earth’s surface when it had cooled so far that the more violent chemical action had ceased. It consisted chiefly of silicates, simple and complex; of some of the original binary compounds, which are scarce affected by water or acids, such as the silicide of carbon (carborundum), of stable oxides, chlorides and sulphides, with other compounds in smaller proportion, and free elements in greater proportion than at the present day. Everywhere, from crevices in the surface, hydrocarbons, phosphoretted hydrogen (phosphine) and ammonia were issuing as gases; the atmosphere was heavy with these gases and with carbon dioxide. No scientific observations thus far show how or from what definite compounds plant life or animal life was first evolved from lifeless matter; but it is certain that the materials were much more abundant and the conditions more favorable at the period when it was evolved than at the present day. An ocean much warmer and less saline than now, a damp atmosphere like that of a hothouse, an abundance of plant food and a choice of raw material, were at hand. The chief foods required for plant life are nitrogen in the form of ammonia or nitrates, carbon dioxide, phosphorus as phosphates, sulphates of lime, of magnesia and of the alkalies, and water. As to the raw material for the first formation of the living cell, it is impossible to say what compounds of carbon were employed; suffice it to note that the known simple and complex binary compounds of carbon were there ready for use; the hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were oozing from the earth’s surface, from the ocean floor as well as from the land, or hanging heavy in the air above it. If warmth or increased pressure were desiderata, an ocean warm to its greatest depths could afford any pressure required. From the decomposition of the nitrides and phosphides below the surface, ammonia and phosphine were escaping into the ocean and into the air. The conditions then during long periods of time were especially favorable for marine life, and as sand and mud accumulated on the rocky surface of the earth, for land plants; the absence of a thick soil being more than compensated for by the abundance of plant food, notably of carbon dioxide and ammonia. The statement may be found in excellent modern text-books of chemistry that ammonia is always formed by the decomposition of plants and animals, accompanied by the further statement that ammonia is a requisite for plant food. No plants—no ammonia; no ammonia—no plants. If this were true, the beginning of plant life would indeed have been a struggle for existence; that it is not true is shown above. This decomposition of nitrides has ceased practically on the actual surface of the earth at the present day because the nitrides have all been decomposed; yet it may be mentioned that specimens of rock freshly quarried in Sweden were recently found to give off ammonia when wet with water, showing the presence of nitrides. Below the actual earth’s surface it is probable that nitrides still exist in large quantity, for ammonia is one of the constituents of volcanic gases; to believe that volcanic ammonia is a product of plant or animal decomposition is difficult; to suppose it formed by the action of steam on nitrides in the earth’s interior is simple. Much the same may be said of the presence of carbides. While they no longer exist on the surface, there is no doubt of their existence in the interior of the earth, and the volcanic gases contain their decomposition products. In this connection the theory—first put forward by Mendelèeff and since supported by Moissan—of the origin of petroleum, may be mentioned. These writers favor the hypothesis that it was formed by the decomposition of carbides by water under pressure; and while the evidence at hand perhaps favors the belief that the petroleum of the more important oil fields owes its origin to decomposition of the lower forms of marine animal life, yet there can be no doubt that petroleum may be formed by carbide decomposition, and it seems probable that natural gas is in part at least a result of the same action. A PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT OF THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MAY 28, 1900, AS OBSERVED BY THE SMITHSONIAN EXPEDITION. By Dr. S. P. LANGLEY , SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. Partly in deference to the report of the United States Weather Bureau, from which it appeared that the chance of a fair eastern sky on the morning of the eclipse was about 8 to 1, and after examination by Mr. Abbot of many stations in North Carolina, Wadesboro, of that State, was selected early in April as the site of the Smithsonian observations. The advantages of Wadesboro being also recognized by Professor Young, of Princeton, Professor Hale, of Yerkes Observatory, and the Rev. J. M. Bacon, of the British Astronomical Association, it came about that four large observing parties, besides several smaller ones and numerous excursionists from the surrounding country, were all joined to produce at Wadesboro one of the largest company of eclipse observers ever assembled for scientific purposes. It is a matter for congratulation that the sky at Wadesboro upon the day of the eclipse was cloudless and clearer than the average, so that the efforts of the observing forces were not thwarted by any circumstances beyond their control. The provisions of the Mayor and authorities of Wadesboro for preventing intrusion before and during the eclipse, and thus securing an undisturbed field of operations, deserve especial recognition. Further than this, the many acts of courtesy and hospitality to the visiting astronomers on the part of the townspeople will long be remembered by the recipients. The Smithsonian party proper consisted of thirteen observers, and included Mr. Langley, Mr. Abbot, aid acting in charge of the Smithsonian astrophysical observatory; Mr. Smillie, in charge of photography; Mr. Putnam, of the United States Coast Survey; Mr. Fowle, Mr. Mendenhall, Mr. Child, Mr. Draper, Mr. Gill, Mr. Kramer and Mr. Smith. Included with these, the Rev. Father Searle and the Rev. Father Woodman gave most valuable assistance. Mr. Hoxie, of Port Royal, S. C., and Mr. Little, of Wadesboro, rendered valued assistance to Mr. Putnam during totality. Professor Hale, of the Yerkes Observatory, was a member of the party, while still in general charge of the Yerkes expedition, and his counsel and aid were of the greatest service. Mr. Clayton, of Blue Hill Meteorological Station, occupied a part of the grounds of the Smithsonian party. The main object of investigation was, of course, the corona, and of this, (first) a photographic and visual study of its structure; with, (second) a determination by the bolometer whether appreciable heat reaches us from it, and, if possible, an examination of the form of its spectrum energy curve. The writer had been particularly struck, when observing the eclipse of 1878 on Pike’s Peak, by the remarkable definiteness of filamentary structure close to the sun’s limb, and had never found in any photographs, not even in the excellent ones of Campbell taken at the Indian eclipse of 1898, anything approaching what he saw in the few seconds which he was able to devote to visual observations at the height of fourteen thousand feet. His wish to examine this inner coronal region with a more powerful photographic telescope than any heretofore used upon it, was gratified by the most valued loan by Prof. E. C. Pickering of the new 12-inch achromatic lens of 135 feet focus, just obtained for the Harvard College Observatory. This lens, furnishing a focal image of more than 15 inches diameter, was mounted so as to give a horizontal beam from a cœlostat clock-driven mirror by Brashear, of 18 inches aperture, and used with 30-inch square plates. To supplement this great instrument, a 5-inch lens of 38-feet focus, loaned by Professor Young, was pointed directly at the sun. This formed images upon 11 × 14 plates moved in the focus of the lens by a water clock. Specially equatorially mounted lenses of 6, 4 and 3-inch aperture, driven by clock work, were provided for the study of the outer corona, and the search for possible intra-mercurial planets. For the bolometric work, the massive siderostat with its 17-inch mirror, and a large part of the delicate adjuncts employed at the Smithsonian Institution in recent years, to investigate the sun’s spectrum, was transported to Wadesboro. The excessively sensitive galvanometer reached camp without injury even to its suspending fibre, a thread of quartz crystal 1-15,000 inch in diameter. Besides these two chief aims (the photography and bolometry of the inner corona), several other pieces of work were undertaken, including the automatic reproduction of the ‘flash spectrum’ by means of an objective prism with the 135-foot lens, the photographic study of the outer coronal region, including provision for recognizing possible intra-mercurial planets, already alluded to, visual and photographic observations of times of contact, and sketches of the corona, both from telescopic and naked-eye observations. The assignment of the observers was as follows: Mr. Langley, in general charge of the expedition, observed with the same 5-inch telescope used by him on Pike’s Peak in 1878, which was most kindly lent for this special comparison by Professor Brown, of the United States Naval Observatory; C. G. Abbot, aid acting in immediate charge, assigned with C. E. Mendenhall to the bolometer; T. W. Smillie, having general direction of the photographic work, made exposures at the 135-foot telescope; F. E. Fowle, Jr., assigned to the 38-foot telescope; Father Searle, directing the assembled telescopes for the outer coronal region, and for intra-mercurial planets, assisted by P. A. Draper and C. W. B. Smith, exposed two cameras of 3-inch aperture and 11 feet focus, and two of 4½-inch aperture and 3½ feet focus, all four of these telescopes being mounted on a single polar axis driven by an excellent clock; De Lancey Gill, assisting Mr. Smillie, removed the flash spectrum objective prism at second contact, and made a single long exposure with a 6-inch photographic lens of 7½ feet focus equatorially mounted; Assistant G. R. Putnam, who, by the kindness of the superintendent of the United States Coast Survey, was detailed for latitude, C longitude D and time observations, also observed contacts, directed the striking of signals by Mr. Little, and rendered other valuable services. Mr. Putnam was assisted in recording contacts by Mr. Hoxie. R. C. Child, observing with a 6-inch telescope of 7½ feet focus, made sketches with special reference to inner coronal detail, and was in addition charged with all electrical circuits for chronograph and automatic photographic apparatus. Father Woodman, with 3½-inch telescope, observed contacts and made sketches.

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