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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ment, and the action of that environment 

 on his posterity is changed in consequence. 

 The relative importance of physical feat- 

 ures varies from age to age according to the 

 state of knowledge and of material civiliza- 

 tion. The improvement of artificial light- 

 ing has rendered possible the existence of a 

 great community at St. Petersburg. The 

 discovery of the Cape route to India and of 

 the New World led to the fall of Venice. 

 The invention of the steam-engine and 

 the electric telegraph has rendered possible 

 the great size of modern states. It must, 

 however, be always borne in mind that the 

 course of history at a given moment, wheth- 

 er in politics, society, or any other sphere 

 of human activity, is the product not only 

 of environment but also of the momentum 

 acquired, in the past ; and, for that reason, 

 changes from what is established are not 

 made so rapidly as they would otherwise be 

 made. 



Education and Work. Many persons 

 believe that under the present systems of 

 education, young people are acquiring a dis- 

 taste for manual labor, and that there is, 

 consequently, danger that the trade and ag- 

 ricultural occupations will be deserted by 

 all but the most inefficient classes of work- 

 men. Much of the experience of English 

 and American society is in favor of this 

 view, and the tendencies in France appear 

 to be in the same direction. As an offset 

 to what may be said in favor of it, the Lon- 

 don "Spectator" directs attention to the 

 fact that no dislike of work, even of the 

 roughest character, has appeared among two 

 of the best -educated races. The Scotch, 

 who have been taught for two hundred years, 

 and are now far more thoroughly trained 

 than English national school boys, show no 

 disposition to avoid labor, but are remarka- 

 ble for persistent and fairly contented in- 

 dustry. The Prussian peasants, " who are 

 as educated as the English will be twenty 

 years hence, work exceedingly hard, and in 

 the country, where their holdings arc their 

 own, show none of the resentment at their 

 fate which is manifested in the towns in 

 the form of socialist aspirations. Gardeners, 

 who all over Great Britain are the best in- 

 structed of manual laborers, work, more es- 

 pecially when working for themselves, with 



unusual diligence ; and it is matter of con- 

 stant observation that a laborer who hap- 

 pens by any accident to be a ' bit of a schol- 

 ar,' can be depended upon when work press- 

 es and every man is required. The people 

 of Rome, who can read and write, are far 

 more diligent than the Neapolitans, who 

 can not ; and the best workmen in Italy are 

 those who have passed through the army, 

 and so obtained what is practically an edu- 

 cation. There seems to be no a priori rea- 

 son why it should be otherwise." 



Anomalies in Hnman Teeth. Professor 

 Busch has described before the Physiologi- 

 cal Society of Berlin various anomalies in 

 human teeth. Among them are anomalies 

 in situation, as in case of the horizontal 

 position of a wisdom-tooth, which, pressing 

 against the third molar, produced inflam- 

 mation in it ; the projection of teeth through 

 the alveolar wall of the maxilla on the ante- 

 rior or posterior side ; exchanges of situa- 

 tion between certain teeth; and irregular- 

 ities in the number of teeth. Among anom- 

 alies in structure are enamel pearls, that 

 is, drops of enamel adhering to the roots, 

 and having no connection with the crown. 

 Anomalies of size are rare ; enlargements 

 affect the root more frequently than the 

 crown. Anomalies of the root are some- 

 times seen in curves, but more frequently as 

 variations in the number of roots. Such 

 anomalies are not frequent ; for, out of 

 eleven thousand teeth examined, only about 

 one hundred specimens had been found to 

 present them. Swellings of the teeth are 

 still more rare ; and no osseous coalescence 

 of the teeth had ever been observed. 



Intelligence of Fish. Mr. W. August 

 Carter has been observing the habits and 

 methods of fishes, and has thereby been 

 led to assert that " the more we learn about 

 them the more they shine out as an intelli- 

 gent, crafty, and ingenious race " ; and he 

 is convinced that some fish, at any rate, 

 are capable of understanding and being un- 

 derstood by one another. He has seen a 

 shoal of carp approached while resting by 

 an individual from another part of the 

 pond ; when, on its arrival, the entire body 

 of fish, following the lead of the solitary 

 carp, migrated to the other side of the 



