78 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 418 



meat of biology ; economic entomology, of agriculture. 

 They have all the difference between them that there is be- 

 tween a pure science and an economic science. Cau we as 

 a society include them both ? I think we should not. On 

 the other hand, the economic entomologists are nearly all 

 at the same time scientific entomologists. These we can and 

 do welcome. 



AFRICAN AND AMERICAN. 



At a meeting of the Canadian Institute, Toronto, Jan. 34, Mr. 

 D. R. Keys, M.A., read, on behalf of Mr. A. F. Chamberlain, 

 M.A., fellow in Clark University, Worcester, Mass., a valuable 

 and interesting paper entitled " African and American: the Con- 

 tact of the Negro and the Indian." He said that the history of 

 "the negro on the continent of America has been studied from va- 

 rious points of view, but in every case with regard to his contact 

 with the white race. It must therefore be a new as well as an 

 interesting inquiry, when we endeavor to find out what hss been 

 the effect of the contact of the foreign African with the native 

 American stocks. Such an investigation must extend its lines of 

 research into questions of physiology, psychology, philology, soci- 

 ology, and mythology. 



Tlie writer took up the history of the African negro in America 

 in connection with the various Indian tribes with whom he has 

 come into contact. He referred to the baseless theories of pre- 

 Columbian negro races in America, citing several of these in 

 illustration. He then took up the question ethnographically, be- 

 ginning with Canada. The chief contact between African and 

 American in Canada appears to have taken place on one of the 

 Iroquois reservations near Brantford. A few instances have been 

 noticed elsewhere in the various provinces, but they do not appear 

 to have been very numerous. In New England, especially in 

 Massachusetts, considerable miscegenation appears to have taken 

 place, and in some instances it would appear that the Indians 

 were bettered by the admixture of negro blood which they re- 

 ceived. The law which held that children of Indian women were 

 bom free appears to have favored the taking of Indian wives by 

 negroes. 



On Long Island the Montauk and Shinnacook Indians have a 

 large infusion of African blood, dating from the times of slavery 

 in the Northern States. The discovery made by Dr. Brinton, that 

 certain words (numerals) stated by the missionary Pyrlaeus to be 

 Nanticoke Indian were really African (probably obtained from 

 some runaway slave or half-breed), was referred to. In Virginia 

 some little contact of the two races has occurred, and some of the 

 free negroes on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake peninsula 

 show evident traces of Indian blood. The State of Florida was 

 for a long time the home of the Seminoles, who. like the Chero- 

 kees, held negroes in slavery. One of their chiefs was said, in 

 1835, to have had no fewer than one hundred negroes. Hei-e 

 considerable miscegenation has taken place, although the authori- 

 ties on the subject seem to differ considerably on questions of 

 fact. In the Indian Territory, to which Cherokees, Seminoles, 

 and other Indian tribes of the Atlantic region have been removed, 

 further contact has occurred, and the study of the relations of the 

 Indian and negro in the Indian Territory, when viewed from a 

 sociological standpoint, are of great interest to the student of his- 

 tory and ethnography. The negro is regarded in a different light 

 by different tribes of American aborigines. After mentioning a 

 few isolated instances of contact in other parts of the United 

 States, the writer proceeded to discuss the relations of African and 

 Indian mythology, coming to about the same conclusion as Pro- 

 fessor T. Crane, that the Indian has probably borrowed more from 

 the negro than has the negro from the Indian. The paper con- 

 cluded with calling the attention of the members of the institute 

 to the necessity of obtaining with all possible speed information 

 regarding (1) the results of the intermarriage of Indian and ne- 

 gro, the physiology of the offspring of such unions ; (2) the social 

 status of the negro among the various Indian tribes, the Indian 

 as a slaveholder; (3) the influence of Indian upon negro and of 

 negro upon Indian mythology. 



DEPOPULATION OF FRANCE.' 



It is somewhat startling to find that the depopulation of France 

 is becoming a common subject of discussion among the savants 

 of that country. The phrase is perhaps somewhat stronger than 

 the circumstances of the case warrant, the fact being that the 

 population of France is simply stationary. Still it is a striking 

 and significant cu'oumstance, that, while the population of all 

 the other great European nations is steadUy and rapidly advan- 

 cing, that of France remains at a standstill. On economic grounds, 

 this arrest of increase in number might seem not altogether an 

 unmixed evil, inasmuch as it should tend to diminish over-com- 

 petition, and to ease the already excessive struggle for existence 

 among the lower classes ; but an impression widely prevails, that, 

 given a fairly normal and healtliy social condition, a growth of 

 population is a natural result, and that a stationary or declining 

 population is an index of some grave disorder of the body politic. 

 We cannot adequately discuss this large and difficult question, 

 but our French neighbors evidently think that something is amiss, 

 and are looking around for the cause and for its remedy. Prob- 

 ably the causes are numerous and complex. Social habits may 

 account for a good deal. The French custom of subdividing land 

 and of providing a dowry for girls offers an obvious motive for 

 keeping down the number of children. Where, as in the west of 

 Ireland, the peasantry have a cheap food-supply, and are con- 

 stitutionally averse to thrift, large families are the rule ; but in 

 France thrift is a virtue carried almost to excess, and the obli- 

 gation of the parents to provide for each new accession to 

 the family is clearly recognized. Moral causes have been 

 supposed to play a large part in the arrest of the population of 

 France, and we are far from underestimating their importance; 

 but this is a difficult and delicate problem, on which it would be 

 rash to dogmatize without the most ample evidence. 



While some of the causes of the phenomenon under discussion 

 may be obscure and remote, others lie under our eyes, and can- 

 not be too carefully scrutinized or too frankly acknowledged. In 

 a recent address before the Academic de Medecine, Dr. Brouardel 

 drew attention to the abnormal mortality from small-pox and 

 typhoid-fever which prevails in France. He points out that 

 while Germany loses only 110 persons per annum from small- 

 pox, France actually loses 14,000. Dr. Brouardel attributes this 

 astounding difference to the rigid way in which vaccination is en- 

 forced in Germany, and to the carelessness of his own country- 

 men in this matter. Statistics show that in 1865, when vacci- 

 nation was not obligatory in Prussia, the mortality was 27 per 100,- 

 000 inhabitants. After vaccination was enforced, the mortality 

 fell in 1874 to 3 60 per 100,000, and in 1886 to 0.049. At the 

 present time the mortality from this cause in France is 43 per 

 100,000. We make a present of these figures of Dr. Brouardel to 

 the Royal Commission on Vaccination. 



As regards typhoid-fever, the deaths due to this disease in 

 France amount to 23,000 per annum. Dr. Brouardel gives a 

 great variety of statistics to show that the liability to typhoid is 

 in direct proportion to the imperfections in fhe water-supply, and 

 that, in proportion as a sufficient supply of pure water is provided, 

 typhoid abates. Thus, at Vienne the typhoid mortality was 200 

 per 100,000 while the inhabitants drank surface, hence often pol- 

 luted, water; but this mortahty fell to 10 per 100,000 on a 

 thoroughly good supply being obtained. At Angouleme the in- 

 troduction of a new supply of pure water reduced the number of 

 cases of typhoid in the proportion of 0.063 to 18. At Amiens, 

 among the military population, the typhoid mortality fell from 

 111 per 10,000 to 7 when a pure supply of water was secured by 

 artesian wells. At Rennes the inhabitants formerly drank from 

 contaminated wells, witli the result that typhoid-fever was always 

 endemic. The introduction of pure water reduced the deaths 

 from typhoid among the military population from 43 per 10,000 

 to 2. Investigations carried out at Besan9on, Tours, Carcassonne, 

 Pai'is, and Bordeaux entirely coiToborate the above striking 

 figures. Typhoid-fever is responsible for the death of 1 soldier 

 in 335 in France, or 298 per 100,000, and this in time of peace. 

 In war its ravages are even far greater. Thus the expeditionary 



* From the London Lancet, Dec. 20, 1890. 



