470 The American Naturalist. " [Maş, 
EDITORIAL. 
EDITORS, E. D. COPE AND J. S. KINGSLEY. 
r these pages nearly four years ago (AMERICAN NATURALIST, 
XXI., p.549) we made an appeal for some properly qualified 
person to write a “Complete Unnatural History.” The neces- 
sary conditions of mind were stated at some length. There must 
be an instinctive ability to unerringly discriminate between the 
false and the true, and to invariably appropriate the former; a 
capacity to trace results from no adequate cause ; and a firm con- 
viction that all the so-called leaders of science were totally wrong, 
while the author is infallible. 
Although we have not returned to the subject in the interval, 
the editors of the Narurauist have been constantly on the look- 
out for the proper person. Numerous claims have been investi- — 
gated, for many pretenders have arisen. It is useless to enumer- 
ate them all, for until this present year of grace, 1891, nota single 
candidate has been proposed who had the necessary grasp of sub- 
ject, the proper disregard of cause and effect, and the all-impor- 
tant wealth of imagination. The Ohio minister who preached 
those celebrated sermons on the Creation in which petroleum was 
regarded as “ strong-smelling grease,” fried out from the decom- 
_ posing bodies of antediluvian reptiles; the man who claimed that 
the Great Lakes are drained by an underground channel into the 
Mississippi River ; the Buffalo doctor who maintained that bacteria 
are decomposing fibrin; the crowd of “ pyramidologists,’—all were 
soon dismissed in short order. We debated longer in the case of 
a callow youth whom we found studying the relations existing 
between the abundance of birds and meteorological conditions— 
not because of any capacity shown in choice of a subject, but 
from the methods of thought revealed by a glance at his note- 
book. A sample will suffice: “ June 23d, 9 a. M. Saw two er 
Sky clear. Wind S. W. June 2 3d, 9.23. Three loons on wae 
distant half mile. Sky clear. Wind S.S. W. June 234, 9-37- Wir 
son’s tern flying overhead towards west. Sky clear. Wind a little 
A 2. ae 
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