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 libitum , 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 Signor Piazzoli. 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 = 1732-4-1742-7 ; P' = 1703-62. 
1719-87. In the case of wires annealed in hydrogen P = 
1289-5-1310-1; P =1263-1299-7. 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 about 
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 organistn 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, 
