Page:LA2-NSRW-2-0163.jpg

EVERETT was so popular that he repeated them in Boston to large audiences. He wrote over 100 articles for the North American Review, of which he was editor for a few years. When he was elected to Congress, in 1824, his public life began. He served ten years, holding positions on important committees most of the time. From 1835 to 1839 he was governor of Massachusetts, and in 1840 was sent to England as minister of the United States. He secured for American seamen the right to fish in the Bay of Fundy, this being the first agreement between England and America on the subject of the fisheries. In 1845-48 he was president of Harvard College. He was secretary of the state for a few months, and again senator from Massachusetts for a short time, and was nominated for vice-president in 1860. His long course of public addresses and lectures, which made him so well known, began in 1824 with an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard College. In 1853 he prepared his address on Washington for the benefit of the Mount Vernon Association. It was delivered first before an immense audience in Boston, and repeated in different cities and states nearly 150 times. He also wrote a weekly article for the New York Ledger, realizing $10,000 for the benefit of the same association. Not including his expenses and his time, Mr. Everett gave $100,000 to the Mount Vernon fund. In 1863 he delivered an address at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg. He died at Boston, Mass., January 15, 1865.  Ev′erett, Mass., a flourishing city in Middlesex County, Mass., adjoining Boston and reached from it by a branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad and also by electric cars. Prior to 1870 it formed part of Malden, but in 1893 it was separately incorporated. It possesses good schools, churches and many fine residences of Boston merchants. Its industries include extensive chemical works, manufactories of rope, wheels, baby-carriages, and gas, coke and steel works. It also has two good public libraries. Population (which has increased rapidly in the past decade) 33,484.  Everett, Wash., the county-seat of Snohomish County, about 35 miles north of Seattle on Puget Sound. The surrounding region is an agricultural, lumbering and mining section. Among its leading industries are saw and paper mills, railroad and machine shops, shipyards and the manufacture of lumber products, etc. Everett has fine public schools and a public library, a hospital, and located here are the United States customs and assayer's offices. The city was settled in 1891, but its fine harbor and excellent railroad facilities have aided in its rapid growth to a substantial and modern city of about 30,000 population.  Ev'erglades. A large, shallow lake or marsh in southern Florida, 160 miles long and 60 broad. It incloses thousands of islets, which have a very rich soil and are covered with dense thickets, and contain great numbers of alligators. From this district Florida is sometimes called the Everglade State.  Evolution. Although evolution is a word in constant use, there still is great vagueness in the minds of most people as to what it stands for. In its broad sense it has come to mean the development of all nature from the past. If we think of the long train of events in the formation of the world and peopling it with life, we may look upon this story, figuratively, as written on a scroll that is being unrolled. Everything that has come to pass is on that part so far unrolled, and everything in the future is still covered but will appear in due course of time. Thus, evolution in its broadest sense may mean the unrolling of the scroll of the universe, including the formation of stars, solar systems and the elements of the inorganic world as well as of all living nature. But the word as usually employed is limited to organic evolution, or the formation of life upon our planet, and in this sense it is used throughout this article. It is a common mistake to suppose that Darwinism and evolution are the same, and there also is much misunderstanding as to the nature of the entire question. Hence we should first get a clear idea of what evolution is, then of the basis upon which it rests, and finally trace the growth of evolutionary thought, especially in the 19th century. Evolution, as used in biology, is a history of the steps by which animals and plants came to be what they are. The great variety of animals and plants is amazing. The water, the earth, the air teem with life; the fishes of the sea are almost innumerable; and in a single group of the insect world—the beetles—there are upwards of 50,000 species known and described. In addition to the living animals, there is entombed in the rocks a great multitude of forms that lived eons ago and became extinct. In view of all these forms the question comes at once to the mind: How shall we account for this great diversity of organic life? Have the great variety of forms existed unchanged from the days of their creation to the present, or have they, perchance, undergone modifications, so that one original form may have, through its descendants, emerged into different kinds? This is not merely an idle question, insoluble from the very nature of the case, for the present races of animals and plants have a long lineage reaching into the past, and it is a historical question to be answered by trying to discover their parentage. We shall see that there is good reason to believe