CORRESP ONDENCE. 



409 



of Franklin's " Poor Richard " has had to go ; 

 and, in place of the steady, conservative habits 

 which Franklin inculcated, wc have a fierce 

 philosophy which perhaps best expresses itself 

 in the current determination not to "get left," 

 and to get there " fairly and easily if possi- 

 ble, but at any rate to 'get there.'" The 

 industrial world has been revolutionized in a 

 half-century ; and the non-adaptation of the 

 population to its industrial environment has 

 put a severe nervous strain upon the entire 

 race. Hence comes tlie great and annually 

 increasing percentage of insane to be found 

 in all civilized countries, and particularly in 

 the United States and England. Our condi- 

 tion has been materially bettered, but this 

 does not altogether compensate for the 

 strangeness of the surroundings ; and, like 

 the child of the forest brought unwillingly 

 into civilization, mental health longs for a 

 little barbarism. Naturally, under the cir- 

 cumstances, the most striking of the ill 

 effects of the strain imposed by the new con- 

 ditions are found in the foreign population 

 which comes to this country with so little 

 preparation. The proportion of insane 

 among this class is very great. But the 

 force of the resisting and reactive tendency 

 may be seen almost everywhere. A college 

 president recently called in a state church as 

 a remedy for our woes, a medicine in order 

 some ten centuries ago. Among economists 

 we have a "new" school, composed largely 

 of young men of little practical experience, 

 who have got their ideas in German univer- 

 sities, and who exhibit a profound partiality 

 for despotic goverimaent, and the revival of 

 that regime where " the state " was every- 

 where. In letters we have Carlyle, whose 

 passion for the imperialistic, the feudal, the 

 patriarchal, joins with his contempt for lib- 

 eralism of every form ; Ruskin, whose detesta- 

 tion of the steam-engine and modern arrange- 

 ments in general reaches an insane pitch ; and 

 Tennyson, the central note of whose thought- 

 ful poetry is one of unrest and impatience. 

 These great writers faithfully reflect the 

 feeling of many, and perhaps most of us; 

 and similar tones are found in our lesser 

 writers. It is rather ludicrous to note how 

 often the newspapers call for " rigid " legis- 

 lation of some kind or other. And of course 

 the Legislatures and courts have not failed 

 to reflect faithfully, as is their duty, the tem- 

 per of society at large. Thus, along with onr 

 great advance, we are suffering the agitation 

 and disquiet of a necessary reaction. Trav- 

 elers on the St. Lawrence will remember a 

 scene typifying our social situation. As the 

 steamer falls into the swift current of the 

 Lachine Rapids, and takes on a fearful 

 speed, we notice short, steep waves angrily 

 assailing us from front and sides. These 

 waves are raised by the rapidity of the 

 water's descent, which, rushing downward 

 at a rate of twenty-five miles an hour, is 

 lashed to fury by the air, just as a rushing 

 air raises the still waters of a lake or ocean. 



And the very swiftness of the descent is in- 

 dicated by, and makes inevitable, the violence 

 of the resisting waves, as we shoot down to 

 the calm waters below the rapids. 



A republication of Mr. Wells's articles 

 is very desirable. It seems to me that they 

 will be accepted as the best contribution of 

 recent years to economic science. Pardon 

 my long letter. Charles S. Ashley. 



Toledo, May 5, 1888. 



FOG-SIGNALS. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir: Mr. A. B. Johnson, in his article in 

 the May number, on " Sound-Signals," re- 

 ferring to my code, commends it as the best 

 he has yet met with, but alludes to it espe- 

 cially as an adaptation of the Morse code. 

 To correct any impression that might arise 

 that my code was suggested by Morse's tele- 

 graphic alphabet, I beg to state that it sim- 

 ply has nothing to do with the Morse code, 

 except that the different signals, long and 

 short, with varying intervals of silence — or 

 non-signaling — may be indicated by dot and 

 dash on a compass-card or chart for con- 

 venience. The signals consist of whistle- 

 blasts, indicating, not only the position of a 

 vessel in fog or darkness, but also the direc- 

 tion in which she is moving. It is not de- 

 signed as an alphabet, except to indicate 

 courses being steered by vessels in danger of 

 colliding if they did not indicate in some way 

 as approximately as possible their position 

 and course. 



Without disputing the facts already stated 

 in this magazine, and in previous articles by 

 the same writer, founded on scientific ob- 

 servation — viz., that aberration of sound 

 does occur from various causes, and that 

 exact location of an object by sound may be 

 impossible — still, it has been the ambition 

 of the writer of this to establish the use of 

 a code of fog-signals at sea designed to pre- 

 vent collisions by indicating the course a 

 vessel may be steering. At present, signals 

 by sound between vessels in motion, indi- 

 cating course, are given when they are each 

 in sight, or at least when one discovers the 

 proximity of the other. By the present 

 code of signals they may indicate whether 

 they will pass to the right or left of each 

 other, and this is done by blowing one or 

 two whistles to which the response is sup- 

 posed to be favorable from the vessel sig- 

 naled. 



This code of signals may be good enough 

 for every purpose when vessels are in sig/it, 

 but gives at best very slight warning when 

 vessels are approaching each other in fog or 

 "thick weather." Something more is de- 

 manded as a warning of approach, and the 

 more intelligible and informing this warning 

 signal can be the better. It has been advo- 

 cated that a signal indicating a vessel's 

 course as being in either of the four quadrants 

 of the compass — as between N. and E., E. and 



