May 28, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



483 



complained in 1870 of injuries done to books by 

 Lepisma ; and Mr. Lewis, after careful examination, 

 stated, that, on account of parts of the bindings hav- 

 ing been eaten, the books fell to pieces. He con- 

 sidered it impossible for Lepisma to bore holes in the 

 books, which holes were probably made by Anobium. 

 Mr. Morrill, head master of the Boston Latin school, 

 has sent books at different times to Professor Hagen, 

 which were injured by Lepisma, and specimens of 

 the obnoxious insect as well. Professor Packard, in 

 his guide, speaks of silk being eaten by Lepisma, 

 which also devours paste, making holes in the leaves 

 of books. Also Mr. Home of London alluded to 

 the damage done to silk garments in India by Lepisma. 

 The insect doubtless attacks the silk for the stiffen- 

 ing-matter in it, but nevertheless destroys the fabric. 

 Finally Mr. Adkin showed a species of Lepisma 

 which damaged account-books kept in an iron safe 

 in London. 



After all these reliable facts, there is no doubt that 

 Lepisma may become very destructive to maps, 

 engravings, photographs, herbariums, and other 

 things, if left undisturbed. The question, why has 

 it not been observed long ago ? may be answered by 

 the fact that they run so swiftly that they are easily 

 overlooked. 



If we tabulate all the facts, we find directly that 

 all damages, excepting to paper, have been inflicted 

 on clothing, muslin curtains, etc., which were invari- 

 ably starched, or finished with some stiffening size. 

 I found a set of labels in the museum which had 

 apparently been eaten by Lepisma, but which, on 

 most careful tests being made, proved to contain no 

 starch. 



Lepisma is easily destroyed by insect-powder, 

 which kills all that it reaches ; and Professor Hagen 

 recommends the same to be sprinkled about silk 

 dresses, or the drawers and closets where such 

 articles, or others likely to be attacked by Lepisma, 

 are kept. He would cover the backs of valuable 

 framed engravings with common, unsized paper, 

 fastened with a paste mixed with insect-powder. 

 All papers, where pressed closely together, are not 

 reached by Lepisma, and in this way large numbers 

 of accidents may be avoided ; or, if they would be 

 injured by pressure, they will be safe kept in simple 

 pasteboard boxes, made to close perfectly, so that 

 the little pest could not find an entrance. 



Robert T. Jackson. 



[This obliteration of labels by insects, presumably 

 by species of Lepisma, has long been a source of 

 annoyance in the paleontological department of the 

 Yale college museum. To remedy the evil, the labels 

 have been, for some time past, prepared by soaking 

 in a solution of corrosive sublimate or arseniate of 

 potash. — Ed.] 



Evolution and the faith. 



It seems almost a pity that a magazine with the 

 splendid reputation that the Century possesses for the 

 encouragement it has given in past years to our con- 

 temporaneous expounders of modern thought, should 

 admit to its columns such a contribution as the one 

 that appears in the May number, from Mr. T. T. 

 Hunger, bearing the above title. 



Mr. Munger closes the essay in question by indicat- 

 ing "in a categorical way the lines upon which 

 further study should be pursued " with respect to 

 ? volution. 



The several lines laid down in this category are 

 divided into two sections, which are, 1°, " the re- 

 spects in which evolution, as a necessary process in 

 natural and brute worlds, does not wholly apply to 

 man;" and, 2°, the "contrasting phenomena of 

 evolution under necessity, and evolution under free- 

 dom." The first section indicates ten lines for 

 further research into the laws involved ; and the 

 second, six. It would occupy far too much space 

 here to reproduce all of these in the words of our 

 author ; and especially is this unnecessary, as it is 

 my sole object to endeavor to show the general fal- 

 lacy that pervades* them all. 



It must be evident to every one of us that Mr. 

 Munger's chief error lies in the fact, that, in draw- 

 ing up these ' further lines for research,' he has kept 

 only before his eyes an idealized man and an ideal- 

 ized brute. May I ask our author where that hard 

 and fast line is to be drawn, where ' instinct yields 

 to conscious intelligence ' ? 



A good many years ago I availed myself of the op- 

 portunity extended to me on a number of occasious, 

 to examine that mass of living humans which con- 

 stituted a cargo that filled the hold of a slave ship in 

 the West Indies ; and many a time since have I had 

 the privilege of studying some of the lowest types of 

 the now-existing Indians in this country. If Mr. 

 Munger has ever had the opportunities of observing 

 the habits of such creatures in their native haunts, 

 I doubt very much that he would be wholly pre- 

 pared to say, that, among all species of men, 11 the 

 struggle for existence [now] yields to a moral law of 

 preservation, and is so reversed." 



Are our researches to now cease with respect 

 to these low types of brute-like men, of w 7 hich 

 whole races still inhabit various quarters of the 

 globe ? Take the Mojaves of this country, and some 

 of the tribes of central Africa, or Asia, or the native 

 Australians, and any number of examples from them 

 will stand witness to violate nearly every axiom Mr. 

 Munger lays down in his category in the Century. 

 In reality, some of them fully carry out the popular 

 notion of a 1 connecting link ; ' and from a study of 

 their physical and moral organizations, science, no 

 doubt, has derived some of her most trustworthy 

 data for the establishment of evolutionary laws. 

 They have by no means ' become conscious of the 

 Infinite One,' nor do they 1 systematize knowledge 

 and reason upon it ; ' or at least, as Mr. Munger says 

 for the brute, ' except in a rudimentary and fore- 

 casting way.' 



Perhaps the remaining 1 lines for research ' of our 

 author's category, upon which I have no comment 

 to pass, may be more pertinent to a far later stage 

 of man's development than would hold good at 

 this day. The laws of evolution are still in active 

 operation about us on every hand, and they have by 

 no means been suspended in man's case, as Mr. 

 Munger would have us believe. It can be said of the 

 highest and best types of men, that, as a class, they 

 are but on the threshold of psychical and intel- 

 lectual evolvement, while some of the lowest forms 

 of the black men of Africa occupy a moral and 

 mental plane but a few degrees above the one in 

 which we find the corresponding attributes of some 

 of those representatives of the animal kingdom that 

 no doubt, in our author's zoology, would be classified 

 among the brutes. 



R. W. Shufeldt. 



Fort Wingate, N.Mex., May 18. 



