Juty 5, 1918] 
On the other hand, the human problem 
of applied heredity or eugenies is far from 
being such a simple business problem be- 
cause the desired results can not be evalu- 
ated on a purely economic basis. In short, 
eugenics, unlike the biologically parallel 
breeding of animals and plants, is not a 
phase of economic zoology, except perhaps 
in the indirectly involved economic prob- 
lems arising from human defectives and 
inefficients. Eugenics is at present a bio- 
logical philosophy and must be developed 
and promulgated accordingly, namely, 
through education. As the biologist so 
well realizes, the production of better hu- 
man strains involves not only the physical 
problems of heredity but also the vastly 
more complicated social, emotional and re- 
ligious traditions which concern human 
families as they are organized to-day. Be- 
fore established biological principles of 
heredity can be applied to the human race, 
either by individuals or by nations, a eu- 
genic philosophy must be accepted. This 
is the next and necessary step in the pro- 
gram of the eugenic movement. More re- 
search may bring stronger conviction that 
the eugenic proposals are scientifically 
true; but little progress can be made ex- 
cept through an educational movement 
which distributes widely among intelligent 
people a eugenic philosophy which deals 
adequately with the biological, social and 
other factors involved. Such an educa- 
tional movement for eugenics must be based 
on biology, and especially on zoology 
which more directly illustrates human life 
and its problems. By education I do not 
mean schools and colleges only, for I am 
thinking of the vast possibilities of popu- 
lar education such as in the past year has 
been applied by lectures, magazines, news- 
papers, pamphlets and posters to the great 
food questions. An energetic and sweep- 
ing educational campaign will some day 
SCIENCE 5 
be necessary if the average intelligent citi- 
zen is to be made to realize what the eu- 
genic proposition may mean for racial wel- 
fare. Here is a possible contribution of 
zoology to human welfare compared with 
which all others are of minor importance. 
As in the case of those philosophical prin- 
ciples of biology which may profoundly 
influence human thought and action, there 
is now in sight only one pathway leading 
towards progress in applying the estab- 
lished biological science to eugenie prac- 
tise. That pathway is labelled ‘‘Educa- 
tion.’’ 
Maurice H. BicrLow 
TEACHERS COLLEGE, 
CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 
VOLCANOES OF HAWAII 
THE entire group of Hawaiian Islands, 
twenty in number, extending in a chain for 
hundreds of miles, is of voleanic origin, though 
some of the islets and reefs are but the wave- 
battered remnants of voleanoes whose fires died 
out long ago. The island of Hawaii has been 
formed by the coalescence of many recently 
formed volcanoes. The walls of the crater of 
the active voleano of Kilauea, on this island, 
are broken down on one side, giving access to 
its “lake of fire.’ This voleano has not always 
been gentle in its ways, but it is now so well 
behaved that the visitor can stand safely on 
the edge of its fiery pit and, if the voleano is 
active, watch the molten rock boiling and 
spouting 100 to 300 feet below. Sometimes 
many fountains throw up jets of glowing sul- 
phurous lava and light up with ghastly glare 
the frowning crags that rim the crater. Then, 
suddenly and with deafening detonations, the 
jets rush together and convert the lake into a 
burning, seething, roaring mass, making a 
escene to which few others in the world are 
comparable. 
Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii, and a 
neighboring voleanic cone, Mauna Kea, both 
nearly 14,000 feet above the sea, are among the 
highest island mountains in the world. On 
