November 2, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



437 



domestication and distribution of cultivated 

 plants in America, and in view of this must 

 be considered also as a point of convergence 

 in attempting to trace back to their origins 

 other features of primitive civilization. The 

 large number of domesticated plants and the 

 high development of agriculture in Peru 

 testify even more forcibly than the succession 

 of different styles of Cyclopean architecture 

 to the presence of large agricultural popula- 

 tions in the valleys of the eastern Andes 

 through long periods of time. The ancient 

 reclamation works of Peru challenge com- 

 parison with anything that was accomplished 

 in Egypt or Assyria. How far the influence 

 of the ancient Peruvian civilization may have 

 extended in America or elsewhere is a ques- 

 tion to which attention may well be given. 

 Pressure of population is a compelling force 

 in the domestication of plants and the de- 

 velopment of intensive agriculture, as well 

 as a cause of migration to unoccupied regions. 

 The essential unity of physical types and of 

 agricultural and other arts among the more 

 advanced peoples of ancient America is to 

 be taken into account, as well as the indica- 

 cations of early trans-Pacific communication 

 of agriciiltural arts and cultivated plants. 



It is important to consider all of the arch- 

 eological and ethnological agreements or co- 

 incidences, since these may make it possible 

 to determine the stage of development of 

 civilization in which the prehistoric com- 

 munication occurred. Whether any partic- 

 ular agreement of words, traditions, or " cul- 

 ture elements " is of real significance is not 

 likely to be determined until such data are 

 brought into relation with facts of other kinds. 

 From the House of Tcuhu in Arizona to the 

 Labyrinth of Minos in Crete, by the way of 

 Peru and Polynesia, is a long journey, but it 

 covers the most practicable routes for the 

 gradual extension of primitive agricultural 

 peoples. That the labyrinth design origi- 

 nated independently in the two hemispheres 

 is as hard to believe as that different people 

 should have identical thiimb-prints. If post- 

 Columbian transfer from the Mediterranean 

 region can not be shown, the trans-Pacific 



route from America to the old world should 

 be considered. O. F. Cook 



Bdkeau op Plant Industry, 

 U. S. Department op Agriculture, 

 Washinqton, D. C. 



benjamin franklin and the struggle 

 for existence 



The extent of Benjamin Franklin's mail- 

 ing address mentioned in the contributions of 

 Dr. Hussakoff and Professor Woodruii in re- 

 cent issues of Science is equalled only by the 

 breadth of Franklin's scientific and other in- 

 terests. 



Just as Darwin and Wallace arrived at the 

 theory of natural selection by reading 

 Malthus's essay on the "Principle of Popula- 

 tion" so Malthus was prompted to write his 

 essay by reading a very brief contribution of 

 Franklin published in 1751 " Concerning the 

 Increase of Mankind." 



Franklin's clear observations on the peo- 

 pling of the New World led him very surely to 

 the notion of a struggle for existence and the 

 pressure of population on the environment. 

 On these two points Franklin writes as fol- 

 lows: 



There is, in short, no bound to the prolific na- 

 ture of plants and animals but what is made by 

 their crowding and interfering with each other's 

 meajis of subsistence. Was the face of the earth 

 vacant of other plants, it might be gradually 

 sowed and overspread with one kind only, as, for 

 instance, with fennel, and were it empty of other 

 inhabitants, it might in a few ages be replenished 

 from one nation only, as, for Instance, with Eng- 

 lishmen. Thus there are supposed to be now up- 

 wards of 1,000,000 of English souls in North 

 America (though it is thought that scare 80,000 

 have been brought over sea) and yet, perhaps, 

 there is not one the fewer in Britain. 



Eegarding the pressure of population, 

 Franklin says in this same essay that America 

 is 



chiefly occupied by Indians who subsist mostly by 

 hunting. But as the hunter, of all men requires 

 the greatest quantity of land from whence to draw 

 his subsistence, the Europeans found America as 

 fully settled as it well could be by hunters. 



B. W. KUXKEL 



Lapatette College 



