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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



testimonial was a letter in which were set 

 forth in pretty full detail the labors of 

 Dutch naturalists before Darwin's time and 

 since in propagating views aliin to those 

 known as " Darwinian." The first name 

 mentioned in the letter is that of Dr. J. E. 

 Doornik, who in 1816 went out to Java, 

 and spent the remainder of his life in India. 

 In his published works he held that the 

 various modifications in which life was re- 

 vealed in consecutive times originated from 

 one another. Doornik had no influence on 

 the thought of his time, however, and his 

 theories were forgotten. In 1849 was pub- 

 lished a Dutch translation of the " Vestiges 

 of the Natural History of Creation." This 

 work was coldly received by the representa- 

 tives of natural science in the Netherlands, 

 but found favor with the general public, 

 and reached a third edition. Of the few 

 Dutch scientific men who early recognized 

 the importance of the theory of develop- 

 ment two are named F. C. Donders and 

 P. Hartiug. The former in 1848 expressed 

 the opinion that in the gradual change of 

 form consequent upon change of circum- 

 stances may lie the cause of differences 

 which we are wont to designate as species ; 

 and the latter in 1856 expressed similar 

 views. 



While visiting Utrecht in 1858, Sir 

 Charles Lyell called the attention of the 

 professors of the university to a paper by 

 Wallace, in the Journal of the Linncean So- 

 ciety, and announced as forthcoming a work 

 by Darwin (" The Origin of Species ") which 

 could not fail to make some noise. Har- 

 ting soon after declared himself a partisan 

 of the development hypothesis, and in this 

 he was followed by another professor in the 

 same university (Utrecht), Miguel, Profess- 

 or of Botany. In the mean time " The 

 Origin of Species" had been translated in- 

 to Dutch by F. C. Winkler. The Darwin- 

 ian views were now enthusiastically adopted 

 in the Netherlands, especially by the younger 

 scientific men, under the lead of Emil Se- 

 lenka, then Professor of Zoology at Ley- 

 den. Groningen and Amsterdam were not 

 tardy in following the lead of Utrecht and 

 Leyden ; in short, the Darwinian theory of 

 development was very generally accepted 

 throughout the Netherlands, and Dutch 

 translations were published of " The De- 



scent of Man " and " The Expression of 

 the Emotions in Man and Animals," both 

 by Dr. Hartogh Heys van Zouteveen. In 

 his reply to this letter, Mr. Darwin express- 

 es his " obligation for the very interesting 

 history contained in it of the progress of 

 opinion in the Netherlands with respect to 

 evolution, the whole of which is quite new 

 to me." 



Ignorant Enterprise. Tlie black-slate 

 beds of Pennsylvania have again and again 

 lured sanguine coal-hunters to loss of time, 

 labor, and money. In that State it is the 

 black slate that plays the " will-o'-the-wisp " 

 to the eager searcher after hidden wealth ; 

 elsewhere it is iron pyrites being mistaken 

 for gold, or quartz for diamonds ; and where 

 natural deposits of wealth are out of the 

 question, men dig into the ground in search 

 of treasure supposed to have been buried 

 by famous buccaneers or noted misers. 

 Prof Persifer Frazer lately told, at a meeting 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila- 

 delphia, the story of one of these searchers 

 for mineral wealth. A farmer of Franklin 

 County, Pennsylvania, had a dream, in which 

 he became aware of the existence of a "treas- 

 ure " in a certain field. On repairing to the 

 spot he began to dig, and " at the first stroke 

 of the spade," as he says, " black dirt was 

 turned up, and at a short distance below the 

 surfiice coal was found equal," in the opin- 

 ion of persons supposed to be experts, " to 

 the best Lykens Valley coal." To work the 

 vein, a tunnel 330 feet long was cut at con- 

 siderable cost. The " coal " was sent to 

 Prof. Frazer for analysis ; it was pronounced 

 to be black slate, with a small percentage 

 of carbon, and that chiefly graphite. It is 

 one of the principal objects of a geological 

 survey to save people from making mistakes 

 like this of the Franklin County farmer. 



Production of Near - Siglitedness in 

 Scbools. The effects of school-life, in pro- 

 ducing near-sightedness in the pupils, have 

 for some time been made the subject of sys- 

 tematic study by Dr. C. R. Agnew, of New 

 York. In a recent address before the Med- 

 ico-Legal Society, he stated the results of 

 an investigation made in various schools of 

 Cincinnati, New York, and Brooklyn. The 

 number of students examined was 1,479, of 



