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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Karakorums there were about half a dozen 

 peaks over twenty-four thousand feet. He 

 had himself climbed one of twenty-three 

 thousand feet. These mountains were very 

 different from the Alps, and were mostly in 

 the form of gigantic towers of incredible 

 sharpness a form in marked opposition to 

 the rounded masses which were the preva- 

 lent form of the European mountains. 



Distribution of Birds. The question of 

 the distribution of birds was cited by Canon 

 Tristram, President of the Biological Section 

 of the British Association, as a sphere in 

 which the field naturalist can work to great 

 advantage in studying the operation of isola- 

 tion in the differentiation of species. Taking 

 as typical examples the Sandwich Islands, 

 thousands of miles from the nearest continent, 

 and the Canaries, within sight of the African 

 coast : in the one we may study the expiring 

 relics of an avifauna completely differenti- 

 ated by isolation ; in the other we have op- 

 portunity of tracing the incipient stages of 

 the same process. In the Sandwich Islands 

 there is hardly a passerine bird in the in- 

 digenous fauna that can be referred to any 

 genus known elsewhere ; and it is now recog- 

 nized that almost every island of the group 

 possesses one or more representatives of each 

 of these peculiar genera. That each of the 

 islands of this group, however small, should 

 possess a flora specifically distinct suggests 

 thoughts of the vast periods occupied in 

 their differentiation. In the Canary Islands 

 the process of differentiation is only partially 

 accomplished. Yet there is hardly a resi- 

 dent species which is not more or less modi- 

 fied, and this modification is still further 

 advanced in the westernmost species than 

 in those nearest to Africa. We have here 

 the effect of changed conditions of life in 

 four hundred years. What might they not 

 have been in four hundred centuries ? The 

 avifauna of the Comoro Islands, to take 

 another insular group, seems to stand mid- 

 way in the differentiating process between 

 those of the Canaries and the Sandwich Is- 

 lands. The little Christmas Island, an iso- 

 lated rock two hundred miles south of Java, 

 only twelve miles in length, has been shown 

 by Mr. Lister to produce distinct and pecul- 

 iar forms of every class of life, vegetable 

 and animal. Though the species are few in 



number, yet every mammal and land bird is 

 endemic. In the year 1857 '58 the speaker 

 spent many months in the Algerian Sahara, 

 and noticed the remarkable variations in dif- 

 ferent groups, according to elevation from 

 the sea and the difference of soil and vegeta- 

 tion. The Origin of Species had not then 

 appeared ; but on his return his attention 

 was called to the communication of Darwin 

 and Wallace to the Linnsean Society on the 

 tendencies of species to form varieties, and 

 on the perpetuation of varieties and species 

 by means of natural selection. He then 

 wrote, citing these variations as supplying 

 illustrations of Darwin's and Wallace's the- 

 ory, but suggesting that, instead of the 

 blending of forms being caused by the two 

 races commingling, rather while the general- 

 ized forms remain in the center of distribu- 

 tion, we find the more decidedly distinct spe- 

 cies at the extremes of the range, caused not 

 by interbreeding, but by differentiation. 



Common Sense on the Labor Question. 



The clear light of pure common sense is 

 thrown upon some of the features of the 

 labor agitation in the comments of the Lon- 

 don Times upon a conference recently held 

 at Westminster Abbey to consider the trou- 

 bles in the collieries. The friends of the 

 agitators, it hints, might profitably occupy 

 themselves with trying to get some clear idea 

 of the problems they are so eager to attack. 

 " It would be useful if they would employ 

 their leisure in framing a definition of a liv- 

 ing wage a little more precise and intelligible 

 than any they have yet vouchsafed. When 

 they have settled what is a living wage for a 

 miner, perhaps they will try to determine 

 what is a fair day's work, or otherwise will 

 kindly explain where the living wage is to 

 come from in the event of the day's work 

 not being worth it. They would also add 

 greatly to their usefulness and avoid some 

 rather ridiculous declamation if they would 

 master the elementary truths that what are 

 called economic laws are not perverted eth- 

 ical maxims invented by unchristian econo- 

 mists, but simply generalizations of every- 

 day phenomena. People had been buying 

 in the cheapest market for thousands of 

 years before English economists drew out in 

 formal propositions the consequences of that 

 universal tendency." Before men stand up 



