June 13, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



933 



of the two shores of the Pacific render 

 their community of origin antecedently 

 probable. Ethnologists have demonstrated 

 the indigenous character of American man, 

 but the coarse-haired yellow and brown 

 races of Asia are evidently intruders who 

 have replaced or amalgamated with older 

 curl-haired peoples. While it is not impos- 

 sible that some elements of the Mongoloid 

 series may have entered Asia from the 

 northeast, the tropical plants could scarcely 

 have been taken over by way of Alaska, 

 and megalithic ruins and other traces of 

 primitive cultures similar to those of an- 

 cient America mark a route from Easter 

 Island to Fiji, Sumatra, Madagascar and 

 southern Arabia, whither archeologists 

 now trace the straight-haired men who 

 initiated the agricultural civilizations of 

 the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates. 



With the assistance of a kinetic theory 

 of evolution and of pertinent facts and 

 analogies it is thus possible to sketch an- 

 thropological evolution without the predi- 

 cation of conditions essentially different 

 from those which exist at the present day. 

 Man is a relatively ancient animal which 

 long since attained a cosmopolitan distri- 

 bution. Divergent tendencies of variation 

 met, however, with ever-strengthening op- 

 position through the growth of mental 

 powers and social habits, and the segrega- 

 tion of groups comparable to zoological 

 species took place only through geograph- 

 ical isolation. The specific separation of 

 the peoples of the two continents also 

 came to an end with the development in 

 America of the arts of agriculture, navi- 

 gation and government, which resulted in 

 the conquest and colonization of the is- 

 lands and shores of the Pacific and Indian 

 Oceans, and the subsequent integration of 

 the superior mixed races and civilizations 

 of these and the adjacent regions. 



0. F. Cook. 



Washington, D. C. 



THE NEW LABORATORY AND GREENHOUSE 

 FOR PLANT PHYSIOLOGY AT SMITH 

 COLLEGE. 

 The remarkable renascence which bot- 

 any is experiencing in America, both in 

 investigation and in education, is inti- 

 mately associated with the development of 

 plant physiology. The reason is plain. 

 The present movement is essentially an ex- 

 ploitation of the new field opened up by 

 our new view of the plant as not primarily 

 a living structure, but a living being. 

 Hence the study of all vital processes be- 

 comes of first importance. The new phys- 

 iological equipment of Smith College, here 

 to be described, is an adaptation to the 

 ever-increasing importance of plant phys- 

 iology. 



STORAGE 

 HOUSE 



PHYSIOLOGICAL 



EXPERIMENT 



HOUSE 



PALM HOUSE 



TROPICAL 

 HOUSE 



WARM 



TEMPERATE 



HOUSE 



CACTUS 

 HOUSE 



HORTICULTURAL 

 HOUSE 



Fig. 1. Ground-Plan of the Lyman Plant House 

 at Smith College. 



