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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



divided into twelve life-saving districts, 

 designated by number, beginning with Maine 

 on the Atlantic and ending with AVashing- 

 ton on the Pacific. Each district is in 

 charge of a superintendent chosen for his 

 knowledge of the subject, business capacity, 

 and executive ability. The districts are 

 subdivided into stations, known by the 

 names of their localities, and situated with 

 regard to the special dangers of the coast. 

 They are of two kinds : complete life-saving 

 stations, and houses of refuge. In all there 

 are about two hundred and forty stations of 

 both kinds, but some of them are not yet 

 fully completed and manned. A majority 

 of them are on the Atlatrtic coast ; ten on 

 the shores of Maine and New Hampshire ; 

 six in Massachusetts, where the Humane So- 

 ciety provides whatever other service is 

 needed ; thirty-nine on Long Island ; forty 

 in New Jersey ; seventeen between Cape 

 Henlopen and Cape Charles ; twenty-three 

 between Cape Henry and Cape Hatteras ; 

 one station and ten houses of refuge in 

 Florida ; eight on the Gulf of Mexico ; forty- 

 nine on the Lakes ; and twelve on the Pa- 

 cific coast. Every station is in charge of an 

 oflicer who is really the captain of the 

 crew, but whose technical designation of 

 keeper is a survival from the time when 

 only one person was constantly employed 

 and depended on volunteers for help. The 

 crews are technically known as surfmen, and 

 are selected by the keeper from the best 

 men in the neighborhood. The crews are 

 under the control of the keepers, and above 

 these are the district superintendent, who 

 visits the stations quarterly; the assistant 

 inspector, who makes monthly rounds ; and 

 the general inspector, who reports periodi- 

 cally to headquarters in Washington. The 

 statements of the operations of the service 

 show that it has been very effective in sav- 

 ing life and property. The entire loss of 

 lives on all the coasts of the United States 

 under the present system since 18 VI has 

 been only thirty-eight in excess of the loss 

 on the Long Island and New Jersey coasts 

 alone during the preceding twenty years. 

 This efficiency is lax-gely due to the fact that 

 politics "has not yet intruded into the service, 

 while the principle of choosing and keeping 

 the best men for their work has been stead- 

 fastly adhered to. 



Organic Variation a Chemical Problem. 



— The laws of chemism are applied by Prof. 

 A. E. Dolbear to explain the phenom- 

 ena of protoplasmic growth and change. 

 Since the discovery of the mechanical equiv- 

 alent of heat there has been no alternative 

 but to suppose those phenomena to be due 

 to motion. Having shown that such motions 

 of matter as constitute sound, heat, magnet- 

 ism, and the rest, all produce fields external 

 to themselves, and that within such fields 

 other bodies are brought into similar states 

 of position or of motion or both, the author 

 would apply the same principle to proto- 

 plasm and cell structure. " Imagine a cell 

 with any degree of complexity, surrounded 

 by material such as it is itself composed of, 

 and what should one look for to take place 

 if not that the same kind of a structure 

 should be reproduced ? When this happens, 

 we say growth has taken place, and it is at- 

 tributed to life. As the new cell is similar 

 to the old one that furnished the specific 

 conditions for its development, we say it 

 has inherited its form and functions. The 

 bearings of this upon the fundamental prob- 

 lems of biology are apparent. If the fore- 

 going be true, heredity is explained as much 

 as inductive magnetism is, and is no more 

 mysterious. . . . Suppose that in such a 

 complex molecule as protoplasm a single 

 atom of a different substance should acci- 

 dentally become imbedded, either as a con- 

 stituent or not, it would bring its field along 

 with it necessarily, and the resultant field of 

 the whole would be modified. It could not be 

 what it would be in the absence of this new 

 constituent, and consequently the reaction 

 upon other matter in its neighborhood would 

 be different, and the next organic molecule 

 formed would need to be a little differently 

 organized. Mechanical conditions would ne- 

 cessitate it. Again, if energy, radiant or 

 conducted, should act for a short time upon 

 one part of a molecule, it might easily bring 

 about an exchange of positions among some 

 of the less stable constituents without other 

 disturbance, and this too would result in a 

 change of the configuration of the field and 

 the direction of growth. Every change in 

 the collocation and motions among molecules 

 exhibits itself in changed properties. Such 

 conditions might properly be spoken of as 

 changes in the environment, but it is mo- 



