POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



285 



the habit of handling weapons — the earliest 

 evidences of man must be sought for in his 

 remains, and not in his works," and here we 

 meet difficulties, for the remains of man, be- 

 ing generally left in situations where they 

 are exposed to decay, disturbance, or re- 

 moval, are rarely found, even where the 

 remnants of his works are numerous, as in 

 the shell-mounds, caves, and lake villages. 

 Hence, discovery of the remains of primi- 

 tive man is highly improbable. That man 

 has not changed in his physical character- 

 istics in the same proportion as other ani- 

 mals is explainable by considering that the 

 moment the ancestors of man possessed the 

 power of banding together in communities, 

 and of using weapons, they became capable 

 of rendering inoperative the very influences 

 which were so active in modifying or exter- 

 minating their mammalian associates. Cope 

 has shown that the formation of man's feet 

 is more like that of the earlier plantigrade 

 type than that of the later ungulate and 

 carnivorous types, in which the heel is lifted 

 up. Man's structural relations are not only 

 with the higher forms of apes, but also with 

 those of the whole range from the gorilla 

 down, and osteologically even with the half- 

 apes and the lemuroids, which last have been 

 discovered in the Lower Eocene of both con- 

 tinents. If these structural affinities are es- 

 tablished, we must look far beyond and be- 

 low the present higher apes for the diverging 

 branches of man's ancestry. Another evi- 

 dence of high antiquity is afforded by the 

 wide dispersion of the points at which the 

 remains of early man have been found. It 

 must have taken an enormous period for a 

 race so low in savagery to have acquired so 



General John Eaton, Vice-President of 

 the Section of Economic Science and Statis- 

 tics, spoke on the value of " Scientific Meth- 

 ods and Scientific Knowledge in Common 

 Affairs." There is no good reason, he said, 

 why scientific men should neglect to apply 

 scientific methods to the economy and sta- 

 tistics of every-day life. It is unfortunate 

 that scientific men aspire so exclusively to 

 original research. We need men to couple 

 love of science with love of mankind. Is 

 not benefit to mankind the real measure of 

 the good that is in science ? The scientific 



method of communicating truth recognizes 

 the fact that man's powers are shaped, and 

 too often the bulk of his knowledge is ac- 

 quired, in early life. Hence its fundament- 

 al rule must be simplicity in the use of lan- 

 guage, and in the presentation of each truth 

 in the concrete. Adopted in the whole do- 

 main of scholastic instruction, it would 

 bring new votaries to science, and a better 

 taste for all kinds of literature would result. 

 The progress of the race is tending toward 

 a gathering up, for man's daily use, of all 

 the lessons of Nature, and to their applica- 

 tion for the prevention of disorders and the 

 anticipation of the need of measures for 

 cure. As balance-sheets are studied in busi- 

 ness, so are questions of finance, of taxa- 

 tion, and public expenditure. Great opera- 

 tions demand and have their collections of 

 statistics and their vast accumulations ready 

 as communications to economic science. But 

 the correlation of all these and their actual 

 results have not yet been reached. Never- 

 theless, money sees the profits of this wis- 

 dom, and is more ready to pay for it. 



The French Association. — The thirteenth 

 meeting of the French Association for the 

 Advancement of the Sciences was opened at 

 Blois, September 3d. The capital fund of 

 the Association was reported to amount to 

 $100,000, and $1,500 had been applied to 

 scientific researches. The President, M. Bou- 

 quet de la Grye, made the opening address, 

 on the subject of the " Progress of Hydrog- 

 raphy in France." He suggested that va- 

 riations in the level of the sea might exist 

 in consequence of differences in the salt- 

 ness of the water producing variations in 

 density, and of differences in temperature. 

 The level of the Mediterranean should be 

 lower than that of the ocean, because its 

 water is more dense. An inci'ease of tem- 

 perature in the German Ocean would flood 

 the coasts, and make Paris a seaport. Dr. 

 Grimaux delivered a memorial address on 

 the academicians who had died during the 

 year. Mr. Bouley presented a paper on M. 

 Pasteur's recent investigations. The Mar- 

 quis de Rochambeau spoke on the archaeo- 

 logical treasures of the Vendome. A for- 

 mal visitation was made by the members of 

 the Association as a body to the statue of 

 Denis Papin, who was a native of Blois, and 



