POPULAR MISCELLANY, 



283 



expense, have brought ruin upon their pa- 

 trons, who had not studied the intricate laws 

 of development. . . . The better knowledge 

 of races and race peculiarities has revolu- 

 tionized and humanized the theories of abo- 

 rigines. The doctrine of extermination, for- 

 merly thought to be the only legitimate re- 

 sult of colonization, has become as odious 

 as it is illogical. The inductive study of 

 mind has hardly begun ; but how much more 

 successfully and rapidly will education and 

 the development of the species progress 

 when the teacher and the legislator can pro- 

 ceed at once from diagnosis to safe pre- 

 scription, when natural selection and human 

 legislation shall cooperate in the more speedy 

 survival of the fittest " ! A third benefit 

 of the study is the opportunity which the 

 science affords for the exercise of every tal- 

 ent, even the highest. It is possible for 

 every craft to prosecute its researches and 

 make its contributions on the subject. 



The Big Trees of Turkistan. Accord- 

 ing to ancient accounts, the mountains of 

 Turkistan were formerly covered with large 

 and handsome forests. Now, the absence 

 of trees and the savage nudity of the moun- 

 tain-slopes are what most strike the traveler 

 in that country. The denudation would, per- 

 haps, have been complete by this time if the 

 Russian Government had not interposed to 

 prevent further waste ; and the restoration 

 of the forests is at present under considera- 

 tion by a commission. The growth of plants 

 in as hot a climate as that of Turkistan is 

 very rapid. Trees at Samarcand and Tash- 

 kend have been known to make growths by 

 measure in a single year of from fifteen to 

 nearly twenty feet, and a corresponding de- 

 velopment in thickness. Nevertheless, fine 

 trees are very rare, though a few exist of ex- 

 traordinary size. They are generally found 

 near some holy place or overshadowing some 

 mosque or hermit's retreat, where they owe 

 their preservation to the respect in which 

 the natives hold the shrines to which they 

 appertain. The Sartes of Tashkend tell of 

 an arbor-vitse, in the inclosure of one of the 

 mosques of their town, which is nearly six 

 feet and a half in diameter and five thou- 

 sand years old. A French traveler has 

 measured mulberrv-trees at Oursrout and at 

 Salavad that were more than sixteen feet in 



circumference at the height of the shoulder, 

 but they did not seem to grow proportion- 

 ately in height. These trees were all in 

 religious places, and were accompanied by 

 plane-trees of equal size. The latter tree is 

 occasionally found of really wonderful di- 

 mensions. Madame 0. Fedtchenko made a 

 drawing of one which was six feet four 

 inches in diameter, the interior of which 

 had been converted into a little medrcsseh. 

 It was growing on a saint's tomb, not far 

 from Samarcand. A plane-tree in the Tajik 

 village of Sairub is twenty-seven feet and a 

 half in circumference at the height of the 

 shoulder. It has been protected from the 

 wash of rains by a barrier of stones, and 

 its hollow trunk has been formed into a 

 square room and fitted up as the village 

 school-house. Near it is another twenty-six 

 paces in circumference at the base. The 

 people say that these trees were planted by 

 Ali. Of a group of old plane-trees at Cho- 

 jakend, east of Tashkend, the largest is a 

 rotten and hollow old stump, looking like 

 the ruin of a giant wall, from which six 

 vigorous lateral trees have shot up. The 

 whole plant is forty-eight paces in circum- 

 ference at the base, and the hollow of the 

 principal trunk is nine metres, or more than 

 twenty-seven feet, in diameter. A party of 

 a dozen tourists from Tashkend once had a 

 feast in the inside of this stump, and were 

 not cramped for room. La Nature. 



Anthropology and Philanthropy. Pro- 

 fessor Otis T. Mason, in his American Asso- 

 ciation address on the " Scope and Value of 

 Anthropological Studies," speaking of their 

 value to philanthropy, says : " "With what 

 admiration do we read of the devotion of 

 those missionaries who have suffered the 

 loss of all things in their propagandist zeal ! 

 Science has her missionaries as well as re- 

 ligion, and the scientific study of peoples 

 has notably modified the methods of the 

 Christian missionary. The conviction that 

 savage races are in possession of our fam- 

 ily records, that they are our elder kindred, 

 wrinkled and weather-beaten, mayhap, but 

 yet worthy of our highest respect, has revolu- 

 tionized men's thoughts and feelings respect- 

 ing them. The Bureau of Ethnology has its 

 missionaries among many of the tribes in 

 our domain, no longer bent on their destruc- 



