[December, 
77 o Working v. Fighting . 
rendered available for the supply of fuel to the metropolis, it 
is surely reasonable so suppose that the present monopoly 
would be succeeded by one still tighter. 
The use of gas as fuel would doubtless tend to the decrease 
of smoke, besides presenting not a few collateral advantages. 
But until the supply is placed in very different hands and 
the price reduced it will continue to play but a subordinate 
Pa 0ur prospers of relief from the fog nuisance are, therefore, 
about as bright as the fog itself. The means most likely to be 
adopted may safely be pronounced remedies worse than the 
disease. 
VI. WORKING V. FIGHTING. 
By J. W. Slater. 
^AKEN with other recent scientific contributions, 
including especially the work of Professor Huxley 
‘ On the Cray Fish,’ the addresses of Prof. Agassiz 
on the echinoderms, and of Professor Le Conte before the 
Entomological Club, show a certain change of attitude, 
which naturalists are now assuming, on the subjedt of the 
development of vegetable and animal forms. There was a 
time, not long ago, when every voice was strident in 
advocacy of evolution. Now evolution is received as an 
established fadt, and scientific effort is directed in explaining 
the many difficulties that lie in the way of the special working 
and applications of the hypothesis. This is the better and the 
truer spirit; for to increase our knowledge we need research 
not polemics.” , 
Thus writes, most justly, the New York Medical Record 
(Sept. 18). But what has so long delayed biologists from 
entering upon this “ more excellent way ” and compelled 
them to spend twenty years in controversy often of doubtful 
• Die Naturlichen Existenz-Bedingungen der Thiere : Von Karl Semper, 
Professor an der Universitat zu Wurzburg. Leipzig : F. A. Brockhaus. 
Island Life ; or, the Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and floras. 
By Alfred Russel Wallace. London : Macmillan and Co. 
