August 31, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



main line, as the topography demanded. Sometimes portions of 

 this location were modified and re-run. Streams were then sur- 

 veyed and gauged, neighboring elevations beyond the limits of the 

 canal taken with the aneroid, and the entire viJork plotted on a four- 

 hundred-foot scale with a ten-foot contour. The boring party then 

 went over the line, boring on all summits and in all depressions, 

 and penetrating to the level of the canal-bottom unless rock was 

 encountered sooner. Borings were also made on the sites of all 

 locks, dams, and embankments. 



Two perfectly practicable routes of about equal cost were found, 

 either of which is far superior to any other route across the isth- 

 mus; and when the day comes, as it surely will, when one canal 

 cannot accommodate the traffic seeking it, then the other can be 

 built, and give one canal for eastward and one for westward bound 

 vessels. The computations of the notes of the surveys being yet 

 incomplete, precise quantities and estimates cannot now be given. 

 In general terms the quantities in the sections where no modifica- 

 tions are made will be the same as those of 1SS5, while the saving 

 from modifications will be from ten million to fifteen million dollars. 

 The item of earth excavation, with its varied plant of excavators, 

 cars, locomotives, etc., and its attendant expense of maintaining 

 and shifting tracks and handling material in rainy weather, is re- 

 duced to a minimum, and the construction of the canal provided 

 for practically under the three heads of hydraulic mining, rock- 

 excavation, and dredging, all independent of drainage and rains. 

 The work can be prosecuted day and night without interruption. 

 Numerous borings have made an end of the bottomless swamps, 

 semi-liquid quicksands, and numerous other subterranean bug- 

 bears which have been conjured up against this route, and have 

 shown that in no portion of either line is there any trouble about 

 foundations. In the worst swamps the boring implement, after 

 sinking with its own weight perhaps ten or at most fifteen feet, 

 reached a stratum of firm red clay extending to bed-rock. The 

 experience of the expedition is worth volumes as evidence concern- 

 ing the effects of the climate of Nicaragua. During the seven 

 months it was in the field, not a man out of nearly two hundred 

 was lost, and there was not a single case of serious illness. The 

 size and capacity of the canal will not vary materially from the 

 plans of 18S5. The number of locks will be reduced to six, and 

 possibly five, and the time of lockage to thirty minutes. The gen- 

 eral dimensions and methods of construction of the locks are not 

 changed, but the double lock at La Flor is a new feature. 



C. K. Remington's plea for cremation was very much contested 

 by various members of the section. The paper was illustrated with 

 diagrams on the blackboard, and the process of incinerating a body 

 was fully explained. The description of the construction of a cre- 

 matory was especially interesting. In answer to questions pro- 

 pounded, Mr. Remington stated that cremation was necessary as a 

 sanitary measure. He also contended that the land used for ceme- 

 teries was needed. He thought it much better that a body should 

 be reduced to dust in an hour than for it to lie in the ground for 

 years. 



Mr. Henry Farquhar gave, under the title ' Economic Value of 

 Binary Arithmetic,' a paper that was more interesting from a theo- 

 retical point of view than from a practical. He explained the ad- 

 vantages that would accrue from the substitution of two for ten as 

 a basis for counting. Instead of having to commit sums of figures 

 to memory, we would perform addition by simply counting the 

 marks of similar shape. There would be no multiplication table 

 to learn, all multiplication being resolved into displacement of sym- 

 bols on a regular plan. This would bring a considerable degree of 

 arithmetical skill within reach of many who cannot possibly attain 

 it at present. 



On Tuesday J. R. Dodge read an interesting paper on ' The Ag- 

 ricultural Surplus." He pointed out that the United States have a 

 surplus of agricultural products very- large in proportion to the total 

 volume. He considered this fact an element of strength and of 

 weakness, and at the same time a subject of congratulation and 

 regret. "The congratulation," he said, " is found in the ability to 

 relieve the deficiencies of needy nations, while swelling the plethora of 

 domestic wealth : the regret is for the tendency to over-jiroduction 

 of certain crops, and its inevitable result. This is the reduction of 

 prices for the benefit of the foreign purchaser, without any advan- 



tage to the producer. Very few people know the extent of our net 

 surplus in agriculture. Almost every one exaggerates it." Mr. 

 Dodge continued to show that the value of the exported product at 

 farm prices is less than §400,000,000. The value of the deficiency 

 supplied by import very nearly reaches $350,000,000. Thus we 

 have a surplus sufficient to pay for our deficiency, and little more. 

 This is the net result of our boast of feeding the nations. We feed 

 them just a little more than they feed us. The lesson we learn 

 from these facts is, that no nation can afford to have a deficiency of 

 the raw products of agriculture ; and, as a rule, nations do not. 

 There is one notable exception, and that is apparent more than real. 

 Great Britain seems to have a large deficiency. Really it is largely 

 made good by shipments from her own colonies, of the dividends of 

 her own capital, under the technical name of ' imports.' Our agri- 

 culture, therefore, should seek to supply deficiencies rather than to 

 swell surplus crops; to meet the present wants of domestic mar- 

 kets, and create new wants by a greater variety of edible products, 

 especially the fruits ; and afterwards supply any deficiency of for- 

 eign nations that is practicable or possible. 



Last of all we mention W. F. Switzler's sketch of the history of 

 statistics, in which he showed that at the earliest stages of civiliza- 

 tion attempts to ascertain statistical data were made, and in which 

 he traced the gradual development of that science. He dwelt upon 

 the importance of statistics to the statesman, whose art is thus 

 made " to rest on the solid masonry of well attested and accom- 

 plished facts, the granite pedestal of recorded history. It is no 

 longer a speculation : it has become a mathematical demonstration. 

 It is no longer a prophecy : it is a revelation." The paper closed 

 with an interesting history of the methods of gathering statistical 

 data. 



The meetings of this section were well attended, and there was 

 sufficient material on hand to keep the section busy until the end 

 of the meeting. 



EVIDENCES OF THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EAST- 

 ERN NORTH AMERICA." 



In studying the history of man we have to adopt the same 

 methods and draw the same inferences as have been done in tra- 

 cing the evolution of animals. This, strangely enough, seems re- 

 pugnant to very many, who feel that any relationship, however 

 remote, with less intelligent creatures, is a reflection upon their own 

 intelligence. 



To determine at what precise point in geological time man ap- 

 peared upon the earth, is, it seems to me, obviously impracticable, 

 from the fact that the dividing-line separating humanity from the 

 non-human cannot be drawn. It were as easy to name the mo- 

 ment when the gloaming merges into night, or shout with confi- 

 dence, ' Now ! ' as the dawn brightens into day. Nor is it demon- 

 strable, with our present knowledge, to point to that country where 

 the momentous change first took place, if it occurred but once. At 

 present, however, we can safely say that miocene man is extremely 

 problematical, and pliocene man a question as yet unsettled ; the 

 auriferous gravels of California being pronounced late tertiary by 

 Whitney, and by LeConte as representing " the beginning of the 

 glacial epoch." 



At all events, we have neolithic man as far back as the glacial 

 epoch, and possibly in the pliocene. Man in the tertiaries, there- 

 fore, championed by my honored predecessor. Professor Morse, be- 

 comes something more tangible than a hypothetical creature. Pro- 

 fessor Putnam has arrived at the conclusion that the western coast 

 of our continent was inhabited by man in earlier geological times 

 than the eastern half. 



Mr. Warren Upham has examined the drift formation of Little 

 Falls, Minn., where Miss Babbitt found those extremely rude but 

 unquestionably worked quartzes, and describes it as the flood-plain 

 of a river of the glacial epoch. 



In 1SS3, as the result of exhaustive studies of glacial deposits, 

 from New Jersey westward, across Ohio, Rev. G. Frederick Wright 

 predicted that traces of paleolithic man would be found in the latter 

 State. 



> Abstract of an address before the Section of Anthropology* of the .•Vmcrican Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, at Cleveland, O., .\ug. is-aa, iS33, by 

 Charles C. Abbott, vice-president of the section. 



