Ixxii THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



recently England, through the labors of Balfour and his pupils, has advanced to a posi- 

 tion far ahead of the United States. 



Of anthropological authors, we have room only to speak of Morton, Davis, E. 

 G. Squier, Pickering, L. H. Morgan, Agassiz, Nott and Gliddon, Wyman, J. D. Whit- 

 ney, Foster, Jones, Abbott, Gatschek, Dorsey, Bessels, Carr, Berendt, Leidy, Baird, Dall, 

 Powell, Putnam, C. A. White, Ran, Gillman, Meigs, Jackson, Barber, C. Thomas, and 

 a number of collectors and students now in the field, chiefly of aboriginal archaeology. 



The third, or evolutional epoch, produced an original and distinctively American 

 school of evolutionists. Hyatt's memoir On the Parallelism between the Different 

 Stages of Life in the Individual, and those in the Entire Group of the Molluscous 

 Order Tetrabranchiata, was published in 1867, and several papers, extending his 

 views to other groups of Ammonites and molluscs, have appeared since then. Cope's 

 Origin of Genera was published in 1868, and his paper On the Method of Creation 

 of Organic Types, in 1871. As Cope observes, tlie law of natural selection "has 

 been epitomized by Spencer as the ' survival of the fittest.' This neat expression, no 

 doubt, covers the case ; but it leaves the origin of the fittest entirely untouched," 

 and he accordingly seeks for the causes of its origin. Here also should be men- 

 tioned the writings of Baird, Allen, and Ridgway, on the laws of geographical 

 distribution and climatic variation in mammals and birds, which have revolutionized 

 our nomenclature in these classes, and bear directly on the evolution hypothesis. 

 Special attempts to ascertain the probable ancestry of American mammals have been 

 made by Cope, Marsh, and Gill ; of cephalopod molluscs by Hyatt ; of insects by 

 Packard ; and of brachiopods by Morse. Contributions to the doctrine of natural 

 selection have been made by Dr. W. C. Wells, Rafinesque, Haldeman, Walsh, Riley, 

 Morse, Brooks, and others. The papers by J. A. Ryder on mechanical evolution, and 

 by Hyatt on the influence of gravitation on the animal organism, deserve especial 

 mention, as do Whitman's on the theory of concrescence. 



In conclusion we may close this historical sketch with some pertinent remarks of 

 Galton in his work on Hereditary Genius : — 



" The fact of a pei'son's name being associated with some one striking scientific 

 discovery helps enormously, but often unduly, to prolong his reputation to after-ages. 

 It is notorious that the same discovery is frequently made simultaneously and quite 

 independently by different persons. Thus, to si)eak of only a few cases in late years, 

 the discoveries of photography, of electric telegraphy, and of the planet Neptune 

 through theoretical calculations, have all their rival claimants. It would seem that 

 discoveries are usually made when the time is ripe for them — that is to say, when the 

 ideas from which they naturally flow are fermenting in the minds of many men. 

 When ajjples are ripe, a trifling event sufiices to decide which of them shall first drop 

 off its stalk; so a small accident will often determine the scientific man who shall first 

 make and publish a new discovery. There are many persons who have contributed 

 vast numbers of original memoirs, all of them of some, many of great, but none of 

 extraordinary importance. These men have the capacity of making a striking dis- 

 covery, though they had not the luck to do so. Their work is valuable and remains, 

 but the worker is forgotten. Nay, some eminently scientific men have shown their 

 original powers by little more than a continuous flow of helpful suggestions and 

 criticisms, which were individually of too little importance to be remembered in the 

 history of science, but which in their aggregate formed a notable aid toward its 

 progress." A. S. Packard. 



