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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 343 



tivity or energy, and consequently in a correspondingly increased 

 degree disturb the serenity if not the structural economy of the 

 oyster. 



Having reached thus far, the invader is in the immediate vicinity of, 

 if not the seat of intellect, the centre of sensitiveness. The deposit 

 of nacre in such instances must be very rapid ; and it is quite pos- 

 sible that the unwelcome explorer is not only enshrouded and en- 

 tombed in pearl, but previously drowned in a pearlaceous flood, for 

 it may be reasonably presumed that the annoyance caused by its 

 presence must be exceedingly great, and likely to induce a copious 

 flow of nacreous lymph at the point and in the region of greatest 

 irritation. It is evident that the deposition and induration are suffi- 

 ciently rapid to inclose the parasite before decomposition has 

 taken place. 



THE WORLD'S FAIR OF 1892. 



Among those who have volunteered suggestions as to the scope 

 of the exhibition to be held in 1892, is Mr. Edward Atkinson. Al- 

 though it may be said that Mr. Atkinson overlooks the main cause 

 for the holding of such an exhibition, which is that it serves mer- 

 chants and manufacturers with a good means of advertising, yet 

 as his letter contains so many good suggestions likely to improve 

 the tone of the exhibition we quote literally from it. Mr. Atkinson 

 writes: — 



I have watched with some interest the course of the discussion 

 on the exhibition proposed for 1892. I have had a little experience 

 in such matters, and have given some thought to the subject. . . . 

 It seems to me that the day has gone by for a great world's fair 

 or bazaar, in which all kinds of goods and wares may be displayed, 

 largely for purposes of advertising them, without much system or 

 method and without any distinctive purpose in the general scope or 

 plan of the exhibition, except to make a great show. Any one who 

 desires to study or observe such goods and wares can find a better 

 exhibition in the shop windows than has ever yet been put to- 

 gether in a world's fair or bazaar. Such fairs are cumbrous, costly, 

 tiresome, and unsatisfactory. The time was when they were novel, 

 interesting, instructive, and useful. The diplomas are, as a rule, 

 of little or no value. I exhausted the dictionary at the Centennial 

 of 1876 in trying to vary the diplomas which we gave substantially 

 to every one who made an exhibit in our group, and the few who 

 were refused afterwards appealed to the higher powers, and ob- 

 tained their diploma or certificate of excellence. . . . There was, 

 however, one conspicuous exception in the Centennial to the gen- 

 erally commonplace character or want of distinct purpose in the 

 method of exhibiting. The Kansas and Colorado exhibit of natural 

 products and resources laid the foundation of the progress of agri- 

 culture and mining in that section. 



When I was called upon to advise how the exhibition at Atlanta 

 should be laid out and directed, my first conception was to bring 

 together every thing that could be exhibited or made known in re- 

 gard to cotton, not only in respect to the fibre but in respect to the 

 seed and the plant. Presently it became apparent to me that such 

 an exhibition would tend more and more to the concentration of 

 Southern efforts upon cotton only and would stand in the way of 

 the diversity of industry which that special section especially 

 needed ; I therefore conceived the plan of imitating the Kansas and 

 Colorado exhibit, and advised the directors to interest the Southern 

 railroads, the owners of land, and the owners of mining property 

 in bringing together that wonderful collection of timber, minerals, 

 and the products of the soil which really formed the most impor- 

 tant part of the so-called Cotton Exposition. . . . When such men 

 as the Inmans and others assure me that the effect of that exhibi- 

 tion and the carrying out of that specific suggestion made the real 

 starting-point in the progress of the South in all the arts which are 

 now gaining so rapidly, and made known to the Southerners them- 

 selves, as a body, the magnitude of their own resources, which had 

 hardly been conceived even by the few, I can no longer resist the 

 conclusion that mine was a happy thought, and that I did con- 

 tribute in considerable measure to the progress and prosperity of 

 the Southern States. Of course, in the nature of the case, the prog- 

 ress would ultimately have been made, but the great and early 

 start is dated from the Atlanta Exposition. 



The motive of the exhibition in 1892 is that the year recalls the 



date of the discovery of America by Europeans four hundred years 

 ago. Ought not the motive of such an exhibition to be the prog- 

 ress in human welfare in four hundred years, through the applica- 

 tion of science and invention to the pursuits of peace ? Ought not 

 such an exhibition to illustrate the interdependence of nations, the 

 growth of commerce, and of modern industry, — prophetic of the 

 time when war shall be forbidden at the command of commerce ? 

 Four hundred years ago the invention of gunpowder had only begun 

 to promote equality in the conditions of men ; it had only begun to 

 make the power of the serf equal to that of the seignior ; it had 

 only begun to do away with the dominion of privilege, and to estab- 

 lish the dominion of human rights ; it had only begun to alter the 

 relations of men in the exchange of services from distribution ac- 

 cording to status to distribution according to contract. The invention 

 of printing had only begun to diffuse intelligence ; it had only be- 

 gun to make possible and to establish a system of common law ; it 

 had only begun to make known to the poor and feeble that He who 

 created the world ruled all things well and recognized no difference 

 among men because of race, birth, condition, or color. The long 

 struggle for equal rights, first taking the form of resistance to 

 superstition, and of wars waged nominally on religious grounds, 

 was soon converted into a system of war waged by nations in order 

 that the so-called civilized nations of Europe might each on its 

 own behalf dominate sections of the new world, and control by 

 force and by colonization the commerce of the continents or of 

 parts of continents secured by war for the sole benefit of the Euro- 

 pean countries, each for itself, by whom this dominion had been 

 gained. 



It is only within the last century of the four, or only since the 

 physiocrats of France first entered upon the study of the relation 

 of men to each other, and since the publication of the " Wealth of 

 Nations," by Adam Smith in 1776, that the true function of trade 

 and commerce has begun to be conceived among civihzed men. 

 Even at the present time the continent of Europe, which, if we 

 separate the uninhabited portions of Norway, Sweden, and Russia, 

 is about equal in area to the area of the United States, omitting 

 Alaska, is divided up into substantially nineteen separate empires 

 or States, each cut off from the other by barriers to mutual service 

 and restrictions upon their traffic, at which barriers ta.xes are levied 

 upon commerce ; the avails of such taxes being more than expended 

 in the support of armies and navies which, except for these bar- 

 riers to mutual service, would not be required. Witness on the 

 other hand, the growth and progress of this nation. The freedom 

 from obstruction to mutual service among its citizens which was 

 established in our organic law, in that provision of the Constitu- 

 tion which forbids any interference with commerce between the 

 States, is without question the rule to which we owe more than to 

 anything else, the preservation of the Union and the freedom from 

 the blood tax, as well as the money tax of a standing army. 



My ideas run away with me in trying to give my conception of 

 what the exhibition of 1892 might be. My conception is yet some- 

 what vague. My general idea is that either by way of examples, 

 of pictures, of graphic illustrations, and of figures, one and all 

 combined, so far as may be, the exhibition should show the prog- 

 ress of modern art and industry from the pre-historic type, or 

 from the type of 1492, down to the present day. 



For instance, the art of weaving is older than history. The pre- 

 historic loom was the same as the loom on which nine-tenths of 

 the material for clothing the people of China is now woven — the 

 same as the hand-loom which even to-day is in operation in the 

 southern mountain valleys of " the land of the sky," in Kentucky, 

 in Tennessee, and in the Carolinas — the same as the hand-loom 

 on which the French habitans of Lower Canada still choose to 

 make the fabrics with which they are clothed. It would be easily 

 possible to give the examples in action of the whole art of weaving 

 within the limits of a small section of a great exhibition building, the 

 Chinese, African, South American, homespun American, and the 

 modern, all in contrast ; the Arab weaving shawls, the Daghestan 

 carpets, the Navajo Indian blankets, etc., on the walls of which 

 section could be pictured geographically the relative demand and 

 supply of the different sections of the globe for the products of the 

 loom. 



The art of spinning could be illustrated in the same way ; . . . 



