Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/297

Rh the habit of handling weapons—the earliest evidences of man must be sought for in his remains, and not in his works," and here we meet difficulties, for the remains of man, being generally left in situations where they are exposed to decay, disturbance, or removal, are rarely found, even where the remnants of his works are numerous, as in the shell-mounds, caves, and lake villages. Hence, discovery of the remains of primitive man is highly improbable. That man has not changed in his physical characteristics in the same proportion as other animals is explainable by considering that the moment the ancestors of man possessed the power of banding together in communities, and of using weapons, they became capable of rendering inoperative the very influences which were so active in modifying or exterminating their mammalian associates. Cope has shown that the formation of man's feet is more like that of the earlier plantigrade type than that of the later ungulate and carnivorous types, in which the heel is lifted up. Man's structural relations are not only with the higher forms of apes, but also with those of the whole range from the gorilla down, and osteologically even with the halfapes and the lemuroids, which last have been discovered in the Lower Eocene of both continents. If these structural affinities arc established, we must look far beyond and below the present higher apes for the diverging branches of man's ancestry. Another evidence of high antiquity is afforded by the wide dispersion of the points at which the remains of early man have been found. It must have taken an enormous period for a race so low in savagery to have acquired so extensive a range.

General John Eaton, Vice-President of the Section of Economic Science and Statistics, spoke on the value of "Scientific Methods and Scientific Knowledge in Common Affairs." There is no good reason, he said, why scientific men should neglect to apply scientific methods to the economy and statistics of every-day life. It is unfortunate that scientific men aspire so exclusively to original research. We need men to couple love of science with love of mankind. Is not benefit to mankind the real measure of the good that is in science? The scientific method of communicating truth recognizes the fact that man's powers are shaped, and too often the bulk of his knowledge is acquired, in early life. Hence its fundamental rule must be simplicity in the use of language, and in the presentation of each truth in the concrete. Adopted in the whole domain of scholastic instruction, it would bring new votaries to science, and a better taste for all kinds of literature would result. The progress of the race is tending toward a gathering up, for man's daily use, of all the lessons of Nature, and to their application for the prevention of disorders and the anticipation of the need of measures for cure. As balance-sheets are studied in business, so are questions of finance, of taxation, and public expenditure. Great operations demand and have their collections of statistics and their vast accumulations ready as communications to economic science. But the correlation of all these and their actual results have not yet been reached. Nevertheless, money sees the profits of this wisdom, and is more ready to pay for it.

The French Association.—The thirteenth meeting of the French Association for the Advancement of the Sciences was opened at Blois, September 3d. The capital fund of the Association was reported to amount to $100,000, and $1,500 had been applied to scientific researches. The President, M. Bouquet de la Grye, made the opening address, on the subject of the "Progress of Hydrography in France." He suggested that variations in the level of the sea might exist in consequence of differences in the saltness of the water producing variations in density, and of differences in temperature. The level of the Mediterranean should be lower than that of the ocean, because its water is more dense. An increase of temperature in the German Ocean would flood the coasts, and make Paris a seaport. Dr. Grimaux delivered a memorial address on the academicians who had died during the year. Mr. Bouley presented a paper on M. Pasteur's recent investigations. The Marquis de Rochambeau spoke on the archæological treasures of the Vôndome. A formal visitation was made by the members of the Association as a body to the statue of Denis Papin, who was a native of Blois,