SCIENCE. 



63 



there was but one opinion, that it would sweep every 

 other dye out of the vat-house. Not only was its ap- 

 plication so simple, requiring solvents instead of mor- 

 dants, but at the price, and especially at the price then 

 current for all dyes, it was the cheapest, with given re- 

 sults. A cosmopolitan demand at once set in, there- 

 fore, for anilines, a demand which not only enhanced 

 figures to famine prices, but which was far beyond the 

 possibility of supply. That supply depended on coal 

 tar ; coal tar depended upon gas works ; gas works, 

 after all, are of limited number all over the world — ■ 

 ergo, the aniline supply could be but limited. As 

 madder fell into a state of almost desuetude, prices 

 naturally depreciated, until from an average of twelve 

 cents a pound, it is not now worth two cents. Thus, 

 as aniline became scarce, madder became cheap, and 

 manufacturers were enabled to pit their "Turkey Reds " 

 in the shape of Pompadour prints and their like, at 

 prices the very best informed anilinists, or anybody 

 else, never dreamt of. And this brings us to the issue. 

 We cannot now see, whatever we foresaw in bye- 

 gone days, that madder and its derivatives, have any- 

 thing at all to fear from aniline and its beautiful 

 eliminates. As circumstances alter cases, so the 

 position of the two chief dyes are equalized by the 

 extent of the supply and the restrictions of demand. 

 Aniline can not be produced ad libitwn, madder can. 

 Almost unlimited high prices will always be given for 

 the former ; but the latter, experience shows us for the 

 first time, can be grown for almost unlimited low 

 prices. The rich and the poor consumers can thus 

 be well served ; but madders go with the poor and 

 therefore the popular prices of both may, nay they 

 will, fluctuate as markets may dictate ; but the fear 

 that aniline will end in the supercession of madder 

 is, we think, entirely groundless. The madder " day" 

 is imminent, if not actual now-a-days, and wherever 

 we go its " hues " are more prominent than those of 

 its great competitors. 



The influence of magnetisation on the tenacity of iron 

 has been lately studied by SignorPiazzoli. Iron wires were 

 hung between two hooks and ruptured by pouring water 

 into a vessel suspended from them. They were about 350 

 mm. long, and were inclosed in a spiral with four wind- 

 ings one over another, which were either all traversed by a 

 current in one direction, or two by a current in one direc- 

 tion, and two by an equal opposite current, so that in both 

 cases the wires were equally strongly heated by the spiral ■ 

 but in one case they were magnetised, in the other not. The 

 weights required to break wires annealed in charcoal — 

 — weight of one metre, G = 0*299 — were, during magneti- 

 sation, P = 1260-1306 ; without magnetisation, P' = 1213- 

 1270. In the case of wires annealed in carbonic oxide — 

 where G = 0*46 g* — P = i732 - 4-i742 - 7 ; P' = i703'62. 

 i7ig - 87. In the case of wires annealed in hydrogen P = 

 i289 - 5-i3io"i ; P'=i263-i299"7. In each separate series 

 accordingly the difference, P — P' was frequently less than 



the difference between the highest and lowest weights 

 required for rupture of apparently identical wires ; still, the 

 mean values in each of the fourteen series were from abou t 

 1 to 3 per cent greater for the magnetised than for the un- 

 magnetised wires, showing that the tenacity of iron increases 



on magnetisation. 



DEGENERATION. 

 By Alfred R. Wallace. 



Degeneration causes an organism to become more simple 

 in structure, in adaptation to less varied and less complex 

 conditions of life. "Any new set of conditions occurring 

 to an animal which render its food and safety very easily 

 attained, seem to lead as a rule to degeneration ; just as an 

 active healthy man degenerates when he becomes suddenly 

 possessed of a fortune ; or as Rome degenerated when pos- 

 sessed of the riches of the ancient world. The habit of 

 the parasitism clearly acts upon animal organisation in 

 this way. Let the parasitic life once be secured, and away 

 go legs, jaws, eyes and ears ; the active and highly-gifted 

 crab, insect, or annellid may become a mere sac, absorbing 

 nourishment and laying eggs." 



We see incipient cases of degeneration in the loss of 

 limbs of the serpentiform lizards and the pisciform mam- 

 mals ; the loss of eyes in the inhabitants of caverns and in 

 some earth-burrowers ; the loss of wings in the Apteryx 

 and of toes in the horse ; and, still more curious, the loss 

 of the power of feeding themselves in some slave-holding 

 ants. More pronounced cases are those of the barnacles — 

 degenerated Crustacea, and the mites — degenerate spiders ; 

 while we reach the climax of the process in Ascidians — 

 degenerate vertebrates, and such mere living sacs as the 

 parasitic Sacculina and Lernseocera, which are degenerated 

 crustaceans. Not only such lesser groups as the above, 

 but whole orders may be the result of degeneration. Such 

 are the headless bivalve mollusca known as Lamellibranchs, 

 which are believed to have degenerated from the head- 

 bearing active cuttle-fish type ; while the Polyzoa or Moss- 

 polyps stand in the same relation to the higher Mollusca 

 as do the Ascidians to the higher Vertebrates. 



While discarding the hypothesis that all savages are the 

 descendants of more civilized races, Prof. Lankester yet 

 admits the application of his principle to explain the con- 

 dition of some of the most barbarous races — " such as the 

 Fuegians, the Bushmen, and even the Australians. They 

 exhibit evidence of being descended from ancestors more 

 cultivated than themselves." He even applies it to the 

 higher races in intellectual matters, and asks: " Does the 

 reason of the average man of civilized Europe stand out 

 clearly as an evidence of progress when compared with 

 that of the men of bygone ages ? Are all the inventions and 

 figments of human superstition and folly, the self-inflicted 

 torturing of mind, the reiterated substitution of wrong for 

 right, and of falsehood for truth, which disfigure our 

 modern civilization — are these evidence of progress? In 

 such respects we have at least reason to fear that we may 

 be degenerate. It is possible for us — just as the Ascidian 

 throws away its tail and its eyes and sinks into a quiescent 

 state of inferiority — to reject the good gift of reason with 

 which every child is born, and to degenerate into a con- 

 tented life of material enjoyment accompanied by ignor- 

 ance and superstition." 



This is very suggestive ; but we may, I think, draw a yet 

 higher and deeper teaching from the phenomena of de- 

 generation. We seem to learn from it the absolute neces- 

 sity of labor and effort, of struggle and difficulty, of dis- 

 comfort and pain, as the condition of all progress, whether 

 physical or mental, and that the lower the organism the 

 more need there is of these ever-present stimuli, not only 

 to effect progress, but to avoid retrogression. And- if so, 

 does not this afford us the nearest attainable solution of 

 the great problem of the origin of evil ? What we call evil 

 is the essential condition of progress in the lower stages of 

 the development of conscious organisms, and will only 

 cease when the mind has become so thoroughly healthy, so 

 well balanced, and so highly organized, that the happiness 

 derived from mental activity, moral harmony, and the 

 social affections, will itself be a sufficient stimulus to higher 

 progress and to the attainment of a more perfect life. 



For numerous instructive details connected with degen- 

 erated animals we refer our readers to the work itself — 

 truly a small book on a great subject, and one which dis- 

 cusses matters of the deepest interest, alike to the naturalist 

 and the philosopher.. — Nature, 



