26o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 562 



of plates as against evei'y other previous system not only 

 makes their introduction a distinct era in electrical 

 science, but opens up an increasingly wide field for their 

 use in every-day life. As accumulators built in this form 

 have been working, notably in Paris, for several years, 

 their durability and efficiency are placed beyond doubt. 

 Not only will they be of the greatest service in connection 

 with electric lighting installations, but their high efficiency 

 and light weight render it probable that sooner or later, 

 in some form or other, they will render electric traction 

 over ordinary roads not only a possibility, but a commer- 

 cial success. It is probable that along the lines of this 

 discovery still further improvements may be made, and 

 each step) in advance will probably open up increasingly 

 wide fields for electrical application. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



^.^Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as a proof of good faith. 



On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number con- 

 taining his communication will be furnished free to any corres- 

 pondent. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with 

 the character of the iournal. 



The Systematic Position of Diptera. 

 In connection with the discussion that has been had 

 on this .subject in the columns of Science, Prof. John B. 

 Smith has suggested that I send you some ideas of my 

 own, as expounded in a lecture before the Brooklyn 

 Institute last February, which was substantially the 

 same as one previously given before the Lowell Insti- 

 tute at Boston, in January, 1892. It was on the general 

 subject of social insects, and after showing that the 

 insects treated were among the more intelligent of the 

 insect world, 1 concluded with a statement of my own 

 views as to the nature of this intelligence, and urged 

 that we can never properly appreciate or bring our- 

 selves- into sympathy with lower creatures until we 

 recognize that they are actuated by the same kind of 

 intelligence as we ourselves. I drew attention to the 

 significant fact that, just as among the mammalia, the 

 higher intellectual development, as in man, is found 

 physiologically correlated with the longest period of 

 dependent infancy, and that this helpless infancy has 

 been, in fact, a prime influence in the origin, through 

 family, clan, tribe and state, of organized civilization ; 

 so in the insect world we find the same physiological 

 correlation between the higher intelligence and de- 

 pendent infancy, and are justified in concluding that 

 the latter is in the same way physiologically correlated 

 with brain development, and, at the same time, the 

 cause of the high organization and division of labor. I 

 then alluded to the discussion as to the systematic posi- 

 tion of the different orders of insects, and especially to 

 the claims that had been made for the Diptera as being 

 of the highest rank. I argued that such claims were 

 not justified, and pleaded for the Hymenoptera, not only 

 on some of the grounds indicated by Dr. Packard, but 

 particularly on the ground that the highest degree of 

 intelligence among insects is exhibited by the social 

 species in this order. There is a great deal that is 

 vague and unmeaning in the discussion as to what is 

 "high" or "low" in the relations of organisms to each 

 other. If specialization of external structural parts is 

 to be looked upon as an index of high position, then 

 very many animals must be admitted to outrank man, 

 whose bodily characteristics are in many respects 

 embryological and non-specialized; while the parasitic 

 forms among insects would have to be placed among 

 the very highest, since, in a majority of instances, they 

 exhibit the most perfect adaptations and specializations. 



Yet these last are almost universally admitted to be 

 degraded forms, while few men will willingly allow that 

 the genus Homo does not stand at the apex of the 

 mammalian class. His superiority, however, is just as 

 uniformly conceded to be by virtue of his intellect. 



In the same way I urged that the order Hymenoptera, 

 containing, as it does, the more highly developed social 

 and intelligent insects, should, by virtue of these facts, 

 rank above all other orders. This question of rank is 

 meaningless, except as an indication of relative com- 

 plexity of structure, the organisms best deserving to be 

 ranked above all others in development being those 

 which have acquired the greatest complexity. Nor 

 must this complexity be confined to mere external 

 structure, but must include nervous organization and 

 brain development — in other words, must include 

 psychical as well as physical characteristics. There is 

 probably no more complex animal organ than the 

 human brain, just as among insects there is probably 

 no more complex hexapod organ than the brain of the 

 ant or of the bee. 



Such are substantially the ideas I set forth, the plea 

 being that intelligence should no more be omitted from 

 any discussion of the question of development or rank 

 among insects than among vertebrates. 



C. F. Riley. 



Washington, D. C. 



BOOK-KEVIEWS. 



Vagaries of Sanitary Science. By F. L. Dibble, M. D. 



Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company. 462 p., 8 vo. 



Impressed with the imperfections, misstatements and 

 inconsistencies of vital statistics in general, and of the 

 reports of boards of health in particular, the author of 

 the above-named work undertook a systematic study of 

 Sanitary Science as practised by its votaries, and from 

 being a believer in the same he has become a bitter 

 antagonist, raising a protest most bitter in tone against 

 all the accepted rulings. The book is outrageous in its 

 sweeping challenge of cleanliness, and the author has 

 certamly laid himself open to criticism in his champion- 

 ship of dirt and filth ; but yet there is a certain well 

 defined point of value in that it sounds a note of caution 

 at a time when we are all rushing headlong into an un- 

 scientific acceptance of sanitary promulgations. Atten- 

 tion, too, is called to the character of the men who have 

 taken up this branch of work, and, though the general 

 statements are a slur upon the many earnest and scien- 

 tific workers, still the statements are too often true of 

 the members of many of our city boards. 



The origin of the movement is described in the "In- 

 troductory" chapter as "a kind of disorderly agitation 

 that suddenly seized the people of Great Britain follow- 

 ing an inquiry into the condition and manners of living 

 of the poorer classes of that country." In our own 

 country the origin is ascribed "more to a fondness and 

 habit of imitating the English than to any other cause." 

 The movement is likened to a fanatical religious awaken- 

 ing, and the science to a false religion, whose priests 

 have held whole continents in terror, and who, to gain 

 stability, persistently summon up some new danger to 

 frighten the people, and then caress them into tranquil- 

 ity by the announcement of their discovery of the anti- 

 dote. The book is recommended by the author — "not 

 for those of life-long prejudice, or who fear to sink into 

 depravity in listening to the innocence of nature's 

 metamorphosis, but for those timid people who have 

 been plagued for the past thirty years by the increasing 

 procession of sanitary terrors, and for those who love 

 truth for truth's sake." 



In chapter I. the history of "Sanitarians — Ancient, 



