57 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



From its highest point, 7,500 feet above 

 the sea, it throws out branches north and 

 south, which now open into alluvial . plain, 

 now descend sheer into the girdle of warm 

 blue sea that encircles the island. The trip 

 to the highest point Blue Mountain Peak 

 is one of two days, the night being spent in 

 a hut on the summit. Provisions must be 

 laid in and guides procured, who will also 

 serve as porters. The road mounts ridge 

 after ridge, winds down steep descents, 

 crosses the streams that rush down every 

 gorge, skirts along the slopes and goes over 

 the tops of the intervening hills, and now 

 and then leaves one valley and follows the 

 course of another. An easy ride of about 

 four hours brings the traveler to Farm Hill 

 Coffee Plantation, where the keys of the 

 hut on the summit may be obtained. The 

 road then winds along past Whitfield Hall to 

 Abbey Green, whose houses and terraces of 

 solid masonry are perched on slopes so steep 

 that they appear in imminent danger of tum- 

 bling into the abyss beneath them. Behind 

 this the road zigzags up the steep sides of 

 the mountain, threading its course between 

 fields of coffee, some of them of such vener- 

 able age that many of the bushes have as- 

 sumed the appearance of dwarfed trees from 

 the constant lopping and pruning, with trunks 

 from six to nine inches in diameter, and only 

 about four feet high. The leaves of cin- 

 chona, blotched with scarlet, now add their 

 quota of color to the scene, for we are leaving 

 the coffee region and reaching the elevation 

 at which this plant best nourishes. Hundreds 

 of acres were planted here some fifteen years 

 ago, but their cultivation is less profitable 

 now, and the cinchona runs wild and self- 

 sown, growing in rank thickets. At the top 

 of the peak, about two hours from Farm 

 Hill, is a small open space covered with soft, 

 springy turf and fringed with stunted trees, 

 at one side of which stands a little hut of 

 two rooms. It has a stove and a supply of 

 fire-wood, which can be used on condition of 

 replacing the wood before leaving a most 

 rigidly observed point of peak etiquette. 

 South of the hut is a narrow track leading 

 down a precipitous ravine, near which is a 

 small pool of water sufficient for one's ab- 

 solute needs except in extraordinarily dry 

 weather, when it fails. The thermometer 

 sometimes falls to 40 Fahr., and solid ice 



was once found on the summit during a wave 

 of unusual cold. Only one of the peaks 

 Sir John's Peak, which is 6,100 feet high 

 approaches within 2,000 feet of the altitude 

 of this one. The southern and western slopes 

 of the range are largely cultivated with cof- 

 fee and inhabited. 



Concurrence of Parts in the Living Or- 

 ganisfflt The presidential address of Dr. 

 J. S. Burdon Sanderson at the British Asso- 

 ciation was devoted to the exposition of the 

 character and scope of biology. Aristotle 

 was named as the true father and founder of 

 the science, while the name was given to it 

 by Treviranus. He conceived the difference 

 between vital and physical processes to lie, 

 not in the nature of the processes them- 

 selves, but in their co ordination that is, in 

 their adaptedness to a given purpose, and to 

 the peculiar and special relation in which 

 the organism stands to the external world. 

 His conception, the speaker declared, " can 

 still be accepted as true." It suggests the 

 idea of organism as that to which all other 

 biological ideas must relate. It also sug- 

 gests, although perhaps it does not express 

 it, that action is not an attribute of the or- 

 ganism but of its essence ; that if, on the 

 one hand, protoplasm is the basis of life, 

 life is the basis of protoplasm. Their rela- 

 tions to each other are reciprocal. We 

 think of the visible structure only in con- 

 nection with the invisible process." It is 

 also of value as indicating at once the two 

 lines of inquiry into which the science has 

 been divided by the evolution of knowl- 

 edge. These two lines may be easily de- 

 duced from the general principle from which 

 Treviranus started, according to which it is 

 the fundamental characteristic of the organ- 

 ism that all that goes on in it is to the ad- 

 vantage of the whole. This conception has 

 at all times presented itself in the minds of 

 those who have sought to understand the 

 distinction between living and non-living. It 

 was expressed by the physiologists of three 

 hundred years ago by the term consensw 

 partium which was defined as the concur- 

 rence of parts in action, of such a nature 

 that each does its share, all combining to 

 bring about one effect, " as if they had been 

 in secret council, but at the same time by 

 some constant law of Nature." It means 



