Jaxuaey 14, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



71 



occurring in the eastern part of the State, and 

 suggested that they offer a promising field to 

 our mining engineers for experiments in con- 

 centrating on a large scale so as to avoid the 

 necessity of running so much barren material 

 through the mills. 



The Society then adjourned to meet again in 

 February. 



Eugene A. Smith, 



Secretary. 



THE 269TH MEETING OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, 



DECEMBER 21. 



Mr. Geo. R. Stetson, in his paper upon 

 'The Climacteric of the Negro Problem,' dis- 

 cussed the causes which have brought about 

 the estrangement of the races ; contending that 

 race discrimination upon the part of the whites 

 is frequently justified by necessity ; a practice 

 of which the negro cannot justly complain, as 

 in every instance where he has obtained gov- 

 ernmental control — in the West Indies, in Li- 

 beria and elsewhere — white citizenship is abso- 

 lutely proscribed. 



The progress in the economic condition of 

 the negro is without intention sentimentally ex- 

 aggerated ; while numbering 12 percent, of the 

 population, the value of his taxable property is 

 but 0.39 of one per cent, of our total wealth. 

 The negro does not suflfer from the lack of op- 

 portunity, but for want of the means and 

 knowledge to make the opportunity his own. 

 While his criminal record is bad, if we take 

 into consideration his opportunities and moral 

 status, our own record of degeneracy is worse, 

 and the White Problem is quite as serious as the 

 Negro Problem. 



Mr. Stetson attributed the present climacteric 

 to the default on our part, and especially of 

 those more closely associated with him, in 

 ignoring the ethical relations of the two races 

 and neglecting personal interest in the negro's 

 moral, industrial and general training. " Our 

 chief and fatal error lies in not practically 

 reorganizing in our educational systems his 

 peculiar racial needs and differences ;" an error 

 which has been fatal to his social progress, and 

 highly inimical and dangerous to the collective 

 interests of both races. 



The primary and greatest need of the negro 

 and forty-one per cent, of our white population 

 is practical instruction in agriculture in the 

 elementary school, a system already revived in 

 France, Germany, Russia and Ireland. 



The abandonment of secondary education at 

 the public expense was advocated upon the 

 ground of its inaccessibility to the great majority 

 of both races, and especially to the negro, the ef- 

 fect of such education upon races of inferior 

 development and upon inferior classes of the 

 higher races being to create a prejudice against 

 manual labor. Incidentally, Mr. Stetson ad- 

 vocated positive religious instruction in the 

 elementary school, and the establishment of 

 the kindergarten as a necessary reenforcement 

 of our school systems in the presence of an en- 

 vironment seething with the most virulent moral 

 pest germs. 



Mr. O. F. Cook, professor of natural science 

 in Liberia College, Monrovia, read a paper on 

 ' Traits of Native African Character,' in which 

 he described the negro as he exists to-day in 

 this negro republic, and gave the difference in 

 character between them and those of the United 

 States. His remarks showed a close and true 

 study of these people, and how they had suc- 

 ceeded, notwithstanding the current belief in 

 this country to the contrary. In Liberia and 

 among the native population generally they re- 

 spected the judgment and ability of the white 

 nian. 



J. H. McCORMICK, 

 General Secretary. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the meeting of December 22, 1897, Mr. 

 W. Lingdren, of the United States Geological 

 Survey, read a paper on ' The Canyons of the 

 Salmon and Snake Rivers, Idaho.' The little 

 known region between Idaho and Oregon where 

 the Snake River and its mighty tributary, the 

 Salmon, join is one of exceptional interest. In 

 this vicinity lies the eastern margin of the great 

 Columbia lava-fields, the shore line, so to speak, 

 where the moulten flows were arrested by the 

 mountain ranges of Idaho. Near Weiser, 

 Snake River leaves the broad open valley occu- 

 pying such a large part of southern Idaho, turns 

 northward and flows across the great lava 



