February 27, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



117 



so perpetuate itself. When a child strikes the comhination 

 required, he is never tired of working it. H. found endless 

 delight in putting the rubber on and off again, each act be- 

 ing a new stimulus to the eye. This is specially noticeable 

 in children's early efforts at speech. They re-act all wrong 

 when they first attack a new word, but gradually get it 

 moderately well, and then sound it over and over in endless 

 monotony. The essential thing, then, in imitation, over and 

 above simple ideo-motor suggestion, is that the stimulus 

 starts a nervous process which tends to reproduce both the 

 stimulus and the process again. From the physiological 

 side, we have a circular activity, — sensor, motor; sensor, 

 motor; and from the psychological side we have a similar 

 circle, — reality, image, movement; reality, image, move- 

 ment. 



The square to the left (Fig. 5) is the first act of imitation ; 

 the movement (mt) now stimulates (dotted line) the eye 

 again {sg'), giving the second square, which by its move 

 ment (mt') furnishes yet another stimulus (dotted line with 

 arrow) ; and so on. The element of will makes slight 

 changes in this diagram, but they may be omitted in this 

 connection. 



With the foregoing descriptions in mind, we may gather 

 up the facts of suggestion. Particular statements of the 



<, 



FIG. 5. — PERSISTENT IMITATION. 



principle from the side of the nervous system are as fol- 

 lows : — 



Physiological suggestion is the tendency of a reflex or 

 secondary-automatic process to get itself associated with and 

 infl.uenced by other sensory or ideal processes. Perhaps the 

 plainest case of it on a large scale is seen in the decay of in- 

 stincts when no longer suited to the animal's needs and 

 environment. 



Sensorimotor suggestion is the tendency of all nervous 

 re-actions to become secondary-automatic and reflex, seen in 

 simple imitation and the passage of the voluntary into the 

 involuntary. 



Deliberative suggestion is the tendency of different com- 

 peting sensor processes to merge in a single motor re-action,, 

 illustrating the principles of nervous summation and 

 arrest. 



Persistent imitative suggestion is the tendency of a 

 •sensor process to maintain itself by such an adaptation 

 ■of its reactions that they become in turn new stimula- 

 tions. 



And from the side of consciousness, suggestion in general 

 is the tendency of a sensory or ideal state to be followed by 

 a, motor state. 



Whether any simpler formulation of these partial state- 

 ments may be reached, is a question which may be delayed 

 until we have looked more closely at the voluntary life. 



J. Mark Baldwin. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Besides the hides of the alligator, of which fifty thousand or 

 sixty thousand are annually utilized in the United States, there 

 are other commercial products obtained. The teeth, which are 

 round, white, and conical, and as long as two joints of an 

 average finger, are mounted with gold or silver, and used for 

 jewelry, trinkets, and for teething babies to play with. They 

 are also carved into a variety of forms, such as whistles, but- 

 tons, and cane-handles. This industry is carried on principally 

 in Florida. Among the Chinese druggists, as stated in the Journal 

 of the Society of Arts, London, there is a great demand for alli- 

 gators' teeth, which are said to be powdered, and administered as 

 a remedy. As much as a dollar apiece is paid by them for fine 

 teeth. All the teeth of the alligator are of the class of conical 

 tusks, with no cutting or grinding apparatus; and hence the 

 animal is forced to feed chiefly on carrion, which is ready prepared 

 for his digestion. Other commercial products of the alligator are 

 the oil and musk pods. The tail of an alligator of twelve feet in 

 length, on boiling, furnishes from fifty to seventy pints of excel- 

 lent oil, which, in Brazil, is used for lighting and in medicine. 

 The oil has been recommended for the cure of quite a variety of 

 diseases. It has a high reputation among the swampers as a 

 remedy for rheumatism, being given both inwardly and outwardly. 

 The crocodiles and alligators possess four musk-glands, — two 

 situated in the groin; and two in the throat, a little in advance of 

 the fore-legs. Sir Samuel Baker says they are much prized by 

 the Arab women, who wear them strung like beads upon a 

 necklace. 



— A series of explorations of great interest have, during the 

 past two years, been carried out by two French travellers, MM. 

 Catat and Maistre, in little-known regions of the island of 

 Madagascar. The results accomplished by these travellers were 

 described by M. Grandidier, the well-known authority on Mada- 

 gascar, at a recent meeting of the Geographical Society of Paris, an 

 account of which is given in the " Proceedings of the Royal 

 Geographical Society " for February. In the summer of 1889 the 

 " Radama I." route from the capital to Tamatave was explored, 

 with the result that it was found to be not so short or so practi- 

 cable as the ordinary route. The travellers discovered a marshy 

 zone called Didy, similar to the great lacustrine plain of Antsi- 

 hanaka, lying between the central mountains and the coast 

 range. Two days were occupied in crossing this hitherto un- 

 known marsh, which gives rise to the river Ivondrona, one of the 

 principal streams of the eastern part of the island. The travellers 

 then proceeded to the bay of Antongil, with the intention of cross- 

 ing the island along the 16th parallel ; but M. Maistre was attacked 

 by fever, and returned to Antananarivo, not, however, by the 

 usual route, but through the province of Antsihanaka, which he 

 found to be placed too far eastwards on recent maps. M. Catat, 

 meanwhile, crossed the island from the east, and reached the west 

 coast at Majonga. He found that the great central mountain 

 mass does not extend, as hitherto supposed, to the 16th parallel; 

 and that the great plains of secondary formation, with their 

 characteristic vegetation of twisted and stunted Bourbon palms 

 and other special trees, occupy here more than two-thirds of the 

 country. The elevated zones of the eastern slope of the coast 

 range are covered with forests, which belong to the first belt of 

 forests running through the whole length of the island ; but M. 

 Catat found no trace in this region of the second belt, parallel to 

 the first, which clothes the slopes of the central mountains be- 

 tween Ikongo and Antsihanaka. M. Catat returned from Majonga 

 to the capital, up the valley of the Ikopa. The two explorers sub- 

 sequently visited together the south of the island, where they 

 discovered the sources of the Omlahy, which discharges itself into 

 the Bay of St. Augustine, also those of the rivers Manambovo and 

 Mandrary, and of one of the head streams of the Mananai-a, and 

 were thus able to determine the watershed of the principal streams 

 of this southern region. They returned from Fort Dauphin along 

 the south-east coast to the mouth of the Mananara, which they 

 ascended as far as Ivohibe, and siurveyed the hitherto unknown 

 course of this important river. Their collections will, it is stated, 

 prove to be of much interest to anthropologists and naturalists. 



