778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



seldom leave a lasting sore on the mind of a generous foe. Any- 

 such is usually healed by the ready and full apology which 

 quickly follows. 



But a combatant who stoops to employ weapons which his 

 opponent disdains to use, places himself thereby outside of the 

 pale of honorable warfare ; and the controversialist who descends 

 to the use of unparliamentary language in debate is self-excluded 

 from further participation. 



It is with regret that we write this, but it is due to all who 

 cherish the honor of their science and the credit of American 

 geologists to enter an earnest and serious protest against the 

 adoption of a tone so bitter and language so unusual as those 

 which characterize the article above referred to. We are unable 

 to fully fathom the motives which led the writer to transgress so 

 far the limits of judicial calmness and social courtesy, and we be- 

 lieve that his own manly feeling will sooner or later awaken and 

 provoke his regret. Meanwhile the only result will be to arouse 

 sympathy with the author, whose calm, dispassionate, and logi- 

 cal replies place the theologian-geologist on a marked vantage- 

 ground above his professional but younger and overzealous 

 brother. We regret that the American Anthropologist * has 

 stooped to allow its pages to be disfigured with words which in 

 no conceivable circumstances can be applicable by one scientist 

 to another, or used by one in reference to another. It is difficult, 

 without speaking too strongly, to characterize fitly so flagrant a 

 breach of the unwritten code. 



This critic has, of course, a perfect right to find fault, if he so 

 desires, with any part or parts of the author's work. This he sees 

 fit to do in regard to his measurements of the motion of the Muir 

 Glacier. But he has done so in terms unnecessarily offensive 

 and contemptuous. He contrasts the " blundering attempts" of 

 Wright with the " excellent measurements " of Reid. The former 

 gave seventy and the latter seven feet a day.f The difference is 

 of course great and surprising; but the dogmatism of our young 

 geologist is not very well timed, for admittedly the two measure- 

 ments do not relate to the same part of the glacier. Moreover, 

 we may be permitted to hazard the inoffensive remark on the 

 other side that, after all, Prof. Wright's figures are more in har- 

 mony with some other known facts than are the smaller ones. 

 We must presume that this critic is aware, though he has appar- 

 ently for the moment forgotten, that, though the Alpine glaciers 

 move at only a few feet daily in August, yet those of the arctic 

 lands have a much more rapid rate. Thus the gigantic glacier of 

 Jakobshavn, in Disco Bay, two and a half miles wide, has a move- 



* American Anthropologist, January, 1893. •)• Ibid., p. 89. 



