SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 



AN ANTICIPATORY MUTATIONIST 



Whenever any new view trains acceptance it is usually found 

 to have been partially anticipated in the writings of various au- 

 thors. The mutation theory is no exception to this rule, and the 

 purpose of this note is to direct wider attention to the anticipa- 

 tion of mutationist views by Thomas Median. While it is known 

 to some that Median held sueh views, it is not. 1 think, generally 

 realized how consistently and persistently he advocated them 

 throughout the course of his life. 



Thomas Meehan was born near London in 1826. was trained 

 as a gardener at Kew and afterwards came to America. He 

 settled in Philadelphia as a horticulturist, became a prolific 

 writer for agricultural and horticultural journals and finally, in 

 1891, established .1/' < han 's Monthly, a journal devoted to garden- 

 ing. He traveled as far as the Rocky Mountains and Alaska, 

 was appointed state botanist for Pennsylvania, and was in 1875 

 elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. His publications included "Native Flowers 

 and Ferns of the United States." in four volumes, and the cur- 

 rent of his work continued until after his death in November, 

 1901. 



But the phases of his active life which T wish to emphasize here 

 were (1) his keenness and accuracy as an observer, and (2) his 

 constant advocacy of discontinuity in the variations of specieson 

 the basis of his own observations, at a time when such views were 

 by no means popular. Median was particularly active in the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Science, and he contributed in all no 

 less than 257 papers and notes to the Proceedings of that society 

 between the years 1862 and 1901. 



Although .Meehan accepted evolution with his contemporaries 

 and with Darwin, yet he never lost an opportunity to emphasize 

 the probable significance of the wide variations which he fre- 

 quently observed in nature, as opposed to the insensible changes 

 which were believed to furnish the material for evolution. The 

 character of his observations as well as the trend of his views, 

 may be indicated by a few quotations from his writings. 

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