5i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cerning themselves about the rules of acclimatization and its diseases, 

 any more than a starving man asks about the sanitary qualities of a 

 ham that is offered to him. 



The question before us is not of an isolated enterprise, but of very 

 extensive ones, and is of interest to the empire as well as to the great 

 companies which are lending their aid to emigration. Great problems 

 must be resolved, in order that we may in the future be in a situation 

 to inform our colonists respecting the fate which awaits them, to found 

 colonies with a foresight of what the probable results will be, and to 

 send emigrants into distant countries under the choice of circum- 

 stances which will permit them to hope for an assured existence. 



These are questions which no general, war minister, or statesman 

 has a right to evade. AVhy should it be different with those at whose 

 invitation battalions of emigrants leave their country ? There is New 

 Guinea, with its rich plains and immense forests coming down to the 

 river-banks. It is no longer a question of sending there only special- 

 ists to discover the most profitable timber-trees and then found busi- 

 ness establishments. Just as in the last century, when the French desired 

 to colonize Cayenne ; what beautiful descriptions did they give of the 

 fertile country, with its luxuriant flora, its wonderful forests, and its 

 ravishing prairies ! When the thousands and thousands of colonists 

 who were sent there had perished to the last man, the French settled 

 down to admire the photographs of those wonderful forests and stay 

 quietly at home, leaving to those whose ethnological province is in Cay- 

 enne the task of propagating themselves and attending to their affairs. 

 I have no doubt that we shall soon be forced to follow this example, and 

 I hope that the frankness with which I declare this conviction will 

 prompt us all to fulfill the duty which this great popular movement im- 

 poses upon naturalists and physicians. It is our duty to take hold of 

 the question and organize the study of it, and to arm ourselves with 

 scientific methods for the exploration of these distant countries, and 

 for ascertaining to what point a permanent colonization in them is pos- 

 sible. 



We need more than isolated examples to satisfy ourselves of the 

 adaptability of the white race to fix itself in this or that place. A 

 peculiar population exists in the mountainous region of the Island of 

 Reunion, called "^;eZi7s blancs" or little whites, who have been ascer- 

 tained to be the last remains of the French colonists who established 

 themselves in that part of the island a great many years ago. Re- 

 cently a French traveler discovered in the Vindhya Mountains, in 

 India, some survivors of a French colony which was founded there 

 three centuries ago. There is nothing impossible in these facts ; but 

 they singularly remind us of the exotic conifers which are planted in 

 our experimental forests. Now and then a forester has a success with 

 one of them, and the little plant becomes an object of curiosity to 

 travelers and the people of the neighborhood. But the number of 



