Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/484

466 the War of 1812, constrain immigration. 4. Not accident, but deep affinities, have guided the northern Europeans to North America, Australasia, and South Africa, the southern Europeans to South America and North Africa. In these officinæ gentium new types will be generated by the fusion of allied varieties. And, finally, it may be that, in the primeval seats of mankind (if such there were), these new types will be themselves reblended into the one original race from which they sprang, but now immeasurably stronger, wiser, happier, and better.

Emigration is thus at first exclusively, and to the last predominantly, masculine in all its aspects. It is conducted by the heroic strand of humanity, the manlier races and their most vigorous sections; by these at the emergence of national manhood; by individuals of a strenuous type by the masculine classes and professions, aggressive religions, the male sex, and at the age of maturity; they are long actuated by the motives that govern the male animal; the earliest agencies are the spiritualization of the male mode of propagation, and the direction is at the beginning that of greatest attractiveness (as of a bride) and latterly the line of least resistance (as if toward a bridegroom). The feminine races, ranks, professions, sects, and sex—feminine elements along the whole sociological scale—join one by one in the fugue, and make at length of each colony a complete reproduction, yet with new attributes, of the mother country.

of the Smithsonian Institution, reports that while the bison has been decreasing in the somewhat unfavorable locality of the Yellowstone Park, some increase has occurred in other parts of the country. A part of the great northern herd has been isolated near Ronan, Montana, and a remnant of the southern herd continues to be maintained in the Pan Handle of Texas. The secretary observes that Texas contains many animals that would be of advantage in our national zoological collection. Several of the Mexican species of deer range in this country, and many distinctively Mexican animals, such as the peccary and the jaguar, occur, while on the plains are found wild horses; and there are even a few camels running wild in some of the m.ore inaccessible parts of the country, relics of a herd imported many years ago.

In a paper on "Popularizing Astronomy," read at the eighth annual meeting of the Astronomical and Physical Society of Toronto, Mrs. George Craig dealt with the subject of establishing an observatory which would, under certain regulations, be open to the public, and be used for general observations of the beauties of the heavens rather than for special study of particular objects. She thought it would be comparatively easy to obtain money for such a purpose. Her scheme was considered decidedly opportune, and the society decided to take up the matter during 1898, and make special effort toward carrying it out.