606 



SCIENCR 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No 174. 



Western mine distributed, as one of the prod- 

 ucts of their 'Holy Terror,' specimens which 

 they denominated metallic cobalt. The sub- 

 stance looked metallic enough, and local as- 

 sayers being unable to deny their statement the 

 shares found ready sale for a while. But after 

 a time one doubting Thomas brought his speci- 

 men to a museum to see if by comparison with 

 anything there he could establish its cobaltic 

 character. A little comparison showed him 

 that his specimen was carborundum, and car- 

 borundum he learned was not made by the re- 

 duction of cobalt ore. Whether he imparted 

 this information to others who thought of pur- 

 chasing shares I do not know, but it is likely 

 that the output of carborundum from cobalt (?) 

 mines received a serious set-back after his dis- 

 covery. 



A Canadian prospector working in a little- 

 explored region found a deposit which for some 

 reason he believed to be zinc ore. He was so 

 well convinced of this that he made his way to 

 a large city for the purpose of obtaining means 

 to work the ore. Visiting a museum where 

 specimens of zinc ore were exhibited, he com- 

 pared them with his own and at first concluded 

 that the two were identical. On looking further, 

 however, he saw specimens of seplaria, which 

 he at once recognized as representing his own 

 specimens. . His dreams .of a zinc mine were 

 dissipated, but that the awakening had come 

 before he had expended his own and other's 

 means was due to his improving an opportunity 

 to consult an accurately classified and identified, 

 in other words, a scientific collection. 



Oliver C. Fareington. 



Field Columbian Museum. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Darwin, and After Darwin. III. Post-Darwinian 

 Questions, Isolation and Physiological Selec- 

 tion. By the late G. J. Romanes. Chicago, 

 Open Court Pub. Co. 1897. 

 The writings of the late Dr. Romanes are 

 always interesting, whether one agrees with his 

 conclusions or not. The present volume de- 

 serves to be widely read by naturalists, not only 

 as a clear exposition of its author's views on 

 evolution, but as au admirable stimulus to 



thought and observation. Dr. Romanes, in the 

 closing years of his life, did all he could to 

 bring about the foundation of an establishment 

 for testing experimentally the various hypoth- 

 eses concerning evolution, but without much 

 success. A few observers have been doing ex- 

 cellent work, but the great majority of working 

 naturalists appear to pay little attention to 

 theoretical considerations, and so lose the op- 

 portunity of contributing valuable evidence to 

 throw light on controverted questions. 



Under the heading of Isolation it is set forth 

 that this may be of two kinds. In Apogamy, or 

 indiscriminate isolation, certain individuals are 

 isolated from their fellows without regard for 

 any peculiarities they may possess ; in Homog- 

 amy, on the other hand, the isolated individuals 

 are isolated because they differ from the rest. 

 Natural selection gives rise to Homogamy by 

 preserving certain individuals having desirable 

 peculiarities, thus isolating them from those 

 which, lacking those characters, perish. Any 

 form of Homogamy must cause a change of type, 

 and thus constitutes a step in evolution. Apog- 

 amy, strictly speaking, would not cause any 

 change ; but as no two portions of a species are 

 entirely alike, in practice it becomes converted 

 into a slight form of Homogamy and in time 

 change results. This is most likely to occur 

 when the separated portion is very small, as the 

 average of a few individuals is less likely to re- 

 semble that of the whole species than the aver- 

 age of, say, half the species. 



It is set forth that there are two forms of 

 evolution, the monotypic and the polytypic. 

 Natural selection, it is stated, can only cause 

 monotypic evolution ; therefore to explain the 

 multiplication of species in space we must call 

 in the aid of other forms of isolation. One 

 potent cause of isolation is said to be Physio- 

 logical Selection, i. e., the segregation of sets of 

 individuals Which are fertile with one another, 

 but wholly or partly sterile with the rest of the 

 species. 



All these matters are discussed in detail, with 

 many quotations from previous writings. On 

 p. 41 it is remarked that " against the view that 

 natural selection is a sufficient explanation of 

 the origin of species there are two fatal diflS- 

 culties : one, the contrast between natural 



