XLVIII. ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE
Many topics in the field of economics and social science are treated with some detail in other parts of this Guide. For public finance, for instance, see the chapter For Bankers and Financiers. Tariffs, trusts, labour questions and the problems of population (such as immigration, eugenics, aliens and race-conflict, the liquor traffic, penal and charitable institutions) are among the topics presented in the course on Questions of the Day. In this chapter is a brief outline of the entire subject, including these special topics.
The key article, equivalent to 35 pages in this Guide, is ECONOMICS, (Vol. 8, p. 899), by W. A. S. Hewins, formerly director of the London School of Economics, secretary of the tariff commission.
[Sidenote: Great Economists]
For the history of economic theory in biographies of great economists, see JEAN BODIN; THOMAS MUN; HOBBES; SIR WILLIAM PETTY; SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE; SIR JOSIAH CHILD; VAUBAN; SIR DUDLEY NORTH; FÉNELON; CHARLES DAVENANT; PIERRE BOISGUILBERT; MONTESQUIEU; FRANÇOIS QUESNAY; BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; ANTONIO GENOVESI; SIR JAMES STEUART; JOSIAH TUCKER; VICTOR MIRABEAU; COUNT OF CARLI-RUBBI; JUSTUS MÖSER; PEDRO RODRIGUEZ; ADAM SMITH; ANNE ROBERT JACQUES TURGOT; FERDINANDO GALIANI; BECCARIA-BONESANA; DU PONT DE NEMOURS; GASPAR MELCHOR DE JOVELLANOS; GAETANO FILANGIERI; ALEXANDER HAMILTON; HENRY THORNTON; THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS; MELCHIORRE GIOJA; JEAN BAPTISTE SAY; DAVID RICARDO; JEAN C. L. DE SISMONDI; JAMES MILL; THOMAS TOOKE; RICHARD JONES; ROBERT TORRENS; FRIEDRICH LIST; J. R. M’CULLOCH; NASSAU W. SENIOR; KARL HEINRICH RAU; HENRY CHARLES CAREY; AUGUSTE COMTE; FREDERIC BASTIAT; HARRIET MARTINEAU; JOHN STUART MILL; BONAMY PRICE; W. T. THORNTON; EMILE DE LAVELEYE; J. E. CAIRNES; J. E. THOROLD ROGERS; J. K. INGRAM; WALTER BAGEHOT; T. E. CLIFFE LESLIE; DAVID AMES WELLS; W. STANLEY JEVONS; HENRY GEORGE; FRANCIS AMASA WALKER; W. G. SUMNER; L. J. BRENTANO; WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM; EUGEN BOEHM VON BAWERK; ARNOLD TOYNBEE; R. T. ELY; A. T. HADLEY; D. R. DEWEY; F. W. TAUSSIG; W. J. ASHLEY; E. W. BEMIS; and E. R. A. SELIGMAN.
For the chief branches of economic theory read:
[Sidenote: Economic Theory]
VALUE (Vol. 27, p. 867) by Dr. J. S. Nicholson, professor of political economy, Edinburgh University, author of Principles of Political Economy, etc. This article, equivalent to 25 pages of this Guide, distinguishes between utility and value—to be valuable a “thing must have some utility; and there must be some difficulty in its attainment.” There are three laws of value—supply and demand, in the discussion of which monopoly-values and competition-values are considered; that of cost of production, in which cost of raw material and wages are obvious factors; and that of increasing cost with increased quantity of production,—upon which depends the theory of rent.
WEALTH (Vol. 28, p. 437) is by the same author, who adopts the definition of wealth connected with the name of Adolf von Held, based on a study of consumption, production and distribution of wealth,—“consumable utilities which require labour for their production and can be appropriated and exchanged.”
CONSUMPTION (Vol. 7, p. 23) is the “destruction of utilities.”
PRODUCTION (Vol. 22, p. 423) is the creation of utilities.
CAPITAL (Vol. 5, p. 278) is accumulated wealth available for earning interest and producing fresh wealth. “It is not antithetical to labour, but ... the accumulated savings of labour and of the profits accruing from the savings of labour.” The “importance of ability or brain-work, as against much of modern theorizing against capitalism,” must not be overlooked.
WAGES (Vol. 28, p. 229), also by Dr. Nicholson, is equivalent to 17 pages in this Guide. It distinguishes between nominal and real wages, describes the economic wages fund theory, and deals with such topics as state regulation of wages, factory legislation, trades unions and wages, effects of machinery on wages.
Further information, more particularly in the field of finance, will be found in:
BANKS AND BANKING (Vol. 3, p. 334), with a special treatment of American banking by Charles A. Conant, formerly treasurer of the Morton Trust Co., New York City, and author of History of Modern Banks of Issue, and with the general description by Sir Robert Palgrave, director of Barclay & Co., Ltd., and editor of the Dictionary of Political Economy.
TRUST COMPANY (Vol. 27, p. 329) is by C. A. Conant, late treasurer of the Morton Trust Co., New York.
MONEY (Vol. 18, p. 694) and FINANCE (Vol. 10, p. 347) are by Prof. Charles Francis Bastable, University of Dublin, author of Public Finance, etc.
See also the articles on GOLD, SILVER, BIMETALLISM, and MONETARY CONFERENCES.
On “Ideal” social systems, see these four groups of articles:
[Sidenote: Anarchism, Socialism, etc.]
ANARCHISM (Vol. 1, p. 914), by Prince Kropotkin, author of Modern Science and Anarchism, and a contributor to the Britannica on Russian geography; and NIHILISM (Vol. 19, p. 686), by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, author of Russia, and The Web of Empire; and biographies of WILLIAM GODWIN, PROUDHON, BAKUNIN, CLÉMENCE LOUISE MICHEL, KROPOTKIN, MOST, RECLUS (like Kropotkin, well known as a geographer), TOLSTOY, and on “anarchist” outrages see CHICAGO (Vol. 6, p. 125), MCKINLEY, ALEXANDER II of Russia, M. F. S. CARNOT, ELIZABETH of Austria (Vol. 9, p. 285), and HUMBERT.
COMMUNISM (Vol. 6, p. 791), and see also ROBERT OWEN, NEW HARMONY, AMANA, SHAKERS, FOURIER, BROOK FARM, CONSIDERANT, CABET, SAINT-SIMON and ONEIDA COMMUNITY; and on Plato’s “Republic,” PLATO (especially pp. 818–819, Vol. 21); on More’s “Utopia,” the article SIR THOMAS MORE (especially p. 825, Vol. 18); on Bacon’s “New Atlantis,” the article FRANCIS BACON (especially p. 144, Vol. 3); on Hobbe’s “Leviathan,” the article HOBBES (especially p. 547, Vol. 13); on Campanella’s “Civitas Solis” or “City of the Sun,” the article CAMPANELLA (Vol. 5, p. 121); SAMUEL BUTLER (Vol. 4, p. 887) for “Erewhon” and “Erewhon Revisited”; and EDWARD BELLAMY (Vol. 3, p. 694) for “Looking Backward,” the latest of the well-known literary pictures of an ideal commonwealth.
CO-OPERATION (Vol. 7, p. 82), by Aneurin Williams, chairman of executive, International Co-Operative Alliance, and author of Twenty-eight Years of Co-operation at Guise; and BUILDING SOCIETIES (Vol. 4, p. 766) and FRIENDLY SOCIETIES (Vol. 11, p. 217), both collaborative articles by Sir Edward William Brabrook, late chief registrar of friendly societies, and Dr. Carroll D. Wright, late United States Commissioner of Labor; and for the different co-operative experiments, see, in addition to the articles mentioned under Communism above: ROCHDALE, GUISE, JEAN BAPTISTE, ANDRÉ GODIN, E. V. NEALE, RAIFFEISEN and SCHULZE-DELITZSCH for German co-operative banks and rural credit, IRELAND (especially p. 749, Vol. 14), FRANCE (especially p. 782, Vol. 10), ITALY (especially p. 14, Vol. 15), RUSSIA (especially p. 887, Vol. 23, on the Artel); and for American approaches to co-operation the articles HOPEDALE, PULLMAN and MORMONS (especially p. 846, Vol. 18).
SOCIALISM (Vol. 25, p. 301), by James Bonar, author of Philosophy and Political Economy; and supplement this by the articles ROBERT OWEN; KARL MARX, by Edward Bernstein, author of Theorie and Geschichte des Socialismus and formerly a Socialist member of the Reichstag and a leader of the German Socialist movement away from Marx; RODBERTUS; LASSALLE; KETTLER; BEBEL; LIEBKNECHT; SCHMOLLER; JAURES; MILLERAND; HENRY GEORGE; WILLIAM MORRIS; H. G. WELLS; BERNARD SHAW; JOHN BURNS; and local articles, especially NEW ZEALAND and FINLAND.
[Sidenote: Tariffs, Trusts, etc.]
Among the more interesting general economic topics are tariffs and trusts, matters of constant and great importance both in politics and business. See the articles: TARIFF (Vol. 26, p. 422), by Dr. F. W. Taussig, professor at Harvard, and author of The Tariff History of the United States; FREE TRADE (Vol. 11, p. 88), by Dr. William Cunningham, archdeacon of Ely, author of Growth of English Industry and Commerce.
PROTECTION (Vol. 22, p. 464), by E. J. James, president of the University of Illinois, author of History of American Tariff Legislation, etc.
For the history of tariff legislation in the United States, the articles ALEXANDER HAMILTON, HENRY CLAY, FEDERALIST PARTY, ANTI-FEDERALIST PARTY, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WHIG PARTY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, J. S. MORRILL, MCKINLEY, etc., and UNITED STATES HISTORY (Vol. 27) especially § 113 (p. 689), § 151 (p. 694), § 195 (p. 701), § 241 (p. 708), § 297 (p. 716), § 314 (p. 718), § 354 (p. 728), § 370 (p. 728), § 373 (p. 729), etc.
And for the English tariff legislation in the last hundred years, the articles CORN LAWS, JOHN BRIGHT, COBDEN, JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, etc.
The article TRUSTS (Vol. 27, p. 334), by Prof. J. W. Jenks of New York University should be supplemented by the article GILDS (Vol. 12, p. 14), contributed by the late Professor Charles Gross of Harvard University, and for American Trust Legislation, by the articles INTERSTATE COMMERCE (Vol. 14, p. 711) and UNITED STATES, History (Vol. 27), especially pages 725–726, 729, 734. See also under separate state headings.
[Sidenote: Labour and Wages]
The article on Gilds just referred to will serve as an introduction to the subject of labour and labour organizations. The most important articles on modern conditions are TRADE UNIONS (Vol. 27, p. 140); STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS (Vol. 25, p. 1024); and LABOUR LEGISLATION (Vol. 16, p. 7), all with American sections by Carroll D. Wright, late U. S. Commissioner of Labor. On labour legislation see the special article EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY (Vol. 9, p. 356) and the sections on legislation and miscellaneous laws in separate state articles.
[Sidenote: Statistics, Population, etc.]
One of the great branches of economics is the study of statistics. Advisedly we say “study of statistics” and in the Britannica the student will find comparatively few statistical tables, but much analysis both of statistics and of their meaning. For statistics of population see, for instance, the section on population in the article UNITED STATES or in any one of the state or city articles. Under Population and Social Conditions in the article UNITED STATES (Vol. 27, pp. 634–638) are treated: growth of the nation geographically and in population, with special consideration of immigration; changes in localities; urban and rural population; interstate migration; sexes; vital statistics—death rate, marriage, families, birth-rate, illiteracy; religious statistics; occupations; national wealth. And the state articles give: total population at each census; foreign-born and of foreign parentage,—often with analysis and historical outlines of immigration and its variation and character and amount; religious statistics; negroes and whites, Indians, Asiatics, etc.; urban population, with list of larger cities and population of each. In articles on American cities and towns population figures are given from the last census; comparisons are made between native and foreign-born and the foreign-born are classified, and, where there is a predominant element, like the Germans in Cincinnati and St. Louis, an estimate of the influence of this element.
One of the problems of population peculiar to the United States, particularly the Southern states, is the negro. See the article NEGRO (Vol. 19, p. 344), especially the part dealing with the United States, which is by Walter F. Willcox, professor of social science and statistics in Cornell University and chief statistician of the U. S. Census Bureau. This article and that on DIVORCE (Vol. 8, p. 334)—another urgent American problem—are remarkable examples of the treatment of a social question from the point of view of a statistician in a most interesting and illuminating manner, although based on dry statistics, and in a manner all the more satisfying and accurate because it has carefully analyzed figures at the back of it.
The status of the negro in different states is described in the separate state articles, and there, too, the reader will find a summary of local divorce laws.
Other articles coming under the head of population are INFANTICIDE, ILLEGITIMACY, LEGITIMACY and LEGITIMATION.
[Sidenote: Social Legislation]
In the chapter in this Guide on Questions of the Day attention is called to the increasing tendency of the state to control and regulate matters which a generation or so ago were considered outside the sphere of government. Two particular economic questions—“social evils” we sometimes call them—are foremost in this category and on these the student of economics should read in the Britannica:
The article PROSTITUTION (Vol. 22, p. 457), by Dr. Arthur Shadwell, member of the Council of the Epidemiological Society and author of Industrial Efficiency and Drink, Temperance and Legislation, and the articles LIQUOR LAWS (Vol. 16, p. 759) and TEMPERANCE (Vol. 26, p. 578), also by Dr. Shadwell. These should be supplemented by accounts of local legislation against liquor, as for example in the articles MAINE, KANSAS, SOUTH CAROLINA, etc. On the Gothenburg system of Sweden and Norway see Vol. 16, pp. 769 and 780, and Vol. 26, p. 587, where, we learn that the essence of this method of conducting the retail traffic is that the element of private gain is eliminated. See besides biographies of temperance reformers—e.g., THEOBALD MATHEW, NEAL DOW, JOHN B. GOUGH, etc.
Another great problem which the state and the municipality are attempting to solve, or to help solve, by means of legislation is that of housing. See the article HOUSING (Vol. 13, p. 814), which comprises not only the topic of city housing and its faults due to overcrowding, excessive value of land in great cities, etc., but the subject of rural housing, and the experiments in garden cities, model towns, etc. See also the article OCTAVIA HILL (Vol. 13, p. 465), and for American model towns, HOPEDALE, PULLMAN, etc.
[Sidenote: Social Welfare]
Many movements for social welfare are of a very different character and are based on an entirely different principle from that of repressive or controlling legislation. Charities, education, care of insane, training of defectives, prison reform—such are a few of these topics, and the student will quickly learn that these burdens have been borne quite as much by the individual as by the State, and that in many instances individual initiative has by long and laborious effort succeeded in reforming in this field abuses which had flourished under government care.
[Sidenote: Charity]
Of prime importance to the student is the elaborate article on CHARITY AND CHARITIES (Vol. 5, p. 860), by Dr. Charles Stewart Loch, secretary to the council of the London Charity Organization Society and author of Charity Organization, Methods of Social Advance, etc. This article, equivalent in contents to 100 pages of this Guide, is made up of an introduction and six parts, as follows:
Introduction: “Charity,” as used in New Testament, means love and mercy—an ideal social state.
Part I.—Primitive Charity—highly developed idea of duty to guest or stranger, whether beggar or vagrant.
Part II.—Charity among the Greeks. “In Crete and Sparta the citizens were wholly supported out of the public resources.” In Athens, charity by: legal enactment for release of debts; assisted emigration; gifts of grain; poor relief for infirm and for orphans of soldiers; pay for public service; private charity; loan societies.
Part III.—Charity in Roman Times. “The system obliged the hard-working to maintain the idlers, while it continually increased their number.” “The effect on agriculture, and proportionally on commerce generally, was ruinous.”
Part IV.—Jewish and Christian Charity. In Christianity a fusion of Jewish and Greco-Roman practice. Summary of Hebrew Charity. “To mark the line of development, we compare: 1. The family among Jews and in the early Christian church. 2. The sources of relief and the tithe, the treatment of the poor and their aid, and the assistance of special classes of poor. 3. The care of strangers; and, lastly, we would consider the theory of alms giving, friendship or love, and charity.”
Part V.—Medieval Charity and its Development. St. Francis and his influence. St. Thomas Aquinas. Medieval endowed charities.
Part VI.—After the Reformation. “The religious life was to be democratic—not in religious bodies, but in the whole people; and in a new sense—in relation to family and social life—it was to be moral. That was the significance of the Reformation.” Organization of municipal relief. Poor relief acts and statutory serfdom. Progress of thought in 18th and 19th century: influence of Rousseau, of Law, of Howard, of Bentham, of Nonconformists, particularly Friends in England; Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor (1796). The Poor Law. Movement for Old Age Pensions. Charity Organization. Hospitals.
American charities and their peculiar problems.
Other articles bearing on the subject are:
POOR LAW (Vol. 22, p. 74), for the British system, and Dr. T. A. Ingram’s articles UNEMPLOYMENT (Vol. 27, p. 578) and VAGRANCY (Vol. 27, p. 837).
[Sidenote: Prisons]
One of the earliest and most important definite charitable movements was prison reform. On this subject see in the Britannica the articles,—all by Major Arthur Griffiths, British inspector of prisons,—PRISON, CRIME, CRIMINOLOGY, CHILDREN’S COURTS, POLICE, JUVENILE OFFENDERS, DEPORTATION, FINGER PRINTS, IDENTIFICATION. This series of articles shows both the improvements in methods of treating criminals, in itself a means of protecting society, and the better methods of defense and of police.
[Sidenote: Insane]
On the treatment of the insane and feeble-minded, on the gradual assumption of responsibility for them by governments, and on the transition from the prison-like asylum to the modern hospital, see the article INSANITY, particularly part III (Vol. 14, p. 616), on Hospital Treatment, by Dr. Frederick Peterson, professor of psychiatry, Columbia University, author of Mental Diseases, etc.
[Sidenote: Deaf and Blind]
As great as the change in treatment of the insane has been that in the treatment of the deaf and blind. On this subject read the articles; BLINDNESS (Vol. 4, p. 59), by Sir Francis J. Campbell, principal of the Royal Normal College for the Blind; and DEAF AND DUMB (Vol. 7, p. 880), by the Rev. Arnold Hill Payne, chaplain of the Oxford Diocesan Mission to the Deaf and Dumb. Both these authors have had experience in teaching in the United States as well as in Great Britain,—one of the many striking instances of the wisdom displayed in the choice of contributors to the Britannica. And see the articles on GALLAUDET (Vol. 11, p. 416), the great teacher of the deaf, and S. G. HOWE (Vol. 13, p. 837), the educator of the blind.
[Sidenote: Biographies]
The following list, arranged for the most part in chronological order, gives some of the names of reformers and philanthropists about whom there are separate articles. These biographical sketches will be of great value for the study of the history and development of charitable work for the public welfare.
John Kyrle Thomas Guy Thomas Coram Adam Anderson Gen. Booth John Howard Tuke (family) Baron de Montyon Granville Sharp Johann Beckmann Sir Thomas Bernard Robert Owen François Charles Marie Fourier George Birkbeck Elizabeth Fry Sir M. H. Montefiore Sir Thomas F. Buxton Theobald Mathew Lucretia Mott Joseph Sturge Sir Rowland Hill B. N. M. Appert Gerrit Smith Framjee Nasarwanjee Patel Victor P. Considerant E. Vansittart Neale Baroness Burdett-Coutts Grace Horsley Darling J. B. A. Godin John B. Gough George Jacob Holyoake Madhowdas Vurjcevandas Clara Barton Louis Adolphe Bertillon Henri Cernuschi Mary Ashton Livermore Sir Francis Galton Geo. Thorndike Angell Sir D. M. Petit George Smith of Coalville M. E. L. Walras Emily Faithfull Lyman Judson Gage Octavia and Miranda Hill A. Carnegie Baron Rowton J. D. Rockefeller Benjamin Waugh Frances E. Willard F. A. Bebel Charles Booth Gabriel Tarde Laurence Gronlund Samuel Gompers Sidney Webb Jane Addams Helen Gould
XLIX. HEALTH AND DISEASE
You may have happened to glance at one of the text-books written for the use of medical students and of doctors, and found that you could hardly understand a word of it. And yet you have found, when you consulted a specialist, and he wanted to explain to you just what was wrong with some part of your body, that he could make it all quite clear to you. The six hundred articles on health and disease in the Britannica are written by specialists, most of them, indeed, by professors in the leading medical schools; and these contributors to the Britannica are also the authors of many of the best text-books that practising physicians and surgeons habitually use. But in the Britannica the specialists were writing for the general public; and for that reason they have taken care not to be too technical either in their point of view or in the language they use.
[Sidenote: Right and Wrong Way to Read]
In this present chapter of the Reader’s Guide, the subject of health and disease is treated just as the Guide treats any other department of knowledge. You may want to learn something about it because it is one of the most wonderful branches of science, just as you would take up the course of reading on astronomy. Or you may feel that you ought to know more than you do about your own body, about the way you should live in order to preserve your health, and about the causes of the diseases to which you are exposed. Some people will tell you that it is unwise to read about the subject at all. That is absurd. There are no doubt exceptional people, with unsound nerves, who will imagine they must take every patent medicine they see advertised, and who long to try every newly discovered serum that the newspapers tell them about.
[Sidenote: The Danger of “Doctoring” Yourself]
Again, you may be told that if you try to learn something about health and disease, you will be tempted to think you know as much as the doctor; and so neglect to go to him when you need his advice. But this objection, again, applies only to people who lack good sense. For example, if you read the article on DENTISTRY, by Dr. E. C. Kirk, dean of the Dental Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, it will help you to understand whatever your dentist may be doing for you. But it will certainly not give you the idea that you could fill your own teeth.
When you find your watch has stopped, you wind it. Then, if it does not start, you take it to the watchmaker. If, instead of doing that, you tried to tinker with it yourself, you would soon be in trouble. On the other hand, it would be ridiculous to go to the watchmaker without first finding out whether the watch merely wanted winding, and a man ought to know enough about his watch to connect the fact that it has stopped with the probability that he has forgotten to wind it. The daily winding is his work, not the watchmaker’s. The chemical and mechanical work that is going on within you is as complicated as anything in a watch or anything that you could see in a laboratory or factory. It is your business (and your most important business, for if you neglect it, you will not be able to do anything properly, for yourself or for anybody else) to keep this machinery running, and to do that is not so simple as to wind a watch. Your body needs food and warmth. It very probably gets too much of both. Furthermore, the food is often unwholesome, and the warmed air is often bad air. But unless you are a millionaire invalid, you do not have a private doctor with you at all hours to watch the food put on your plate and to ventilate your room.
[Sidenote: The Kind of Knowledge You Need]
The average watch is better treated than the average human body, and when the average body goes wrong, through the average man’s thoughtlessness, he proceeds, without in the least knowing what is wrong, to take violent medicines, or to experiment with some fad about diet or underclothing or gymnastics, and to make matters very much worse. The knowledge he can gain from the Britannica will tend to keep him from being careless, and also from trying to doctor himself when he needs professional care. Whether you undertake a complete course of medical reading or not, it is certainly worth your while to read the first group of articles mentioned in this chapter—those which have to do with the healthy routine of life.
[Sidenote: Eating and Drinking]
You will find the best introduction to the subject of diet in general in a section (Vol. 26, p. 799) of the article THERAPEUTICS, by Sir Lauder Brunton. He is one of the most famous consulting physicians in the world, and he gives you advice which your own doctor will certainly confirm when he tells you that the way to avoid indigestion is to masticate your food well and sip half a pint of hot water four times a day—when you go to bed, when you get up, and again about an hour before luncheon and dinner, instead of drinking anything with any meal except your breakfast. If you try that treatment for a week, you will be glad that you looked at this chapter of the Guide. NUTRITION (Vol. 19, p. 920), by Prof. Noel Paton and Dr. Cathcart, describes the process of nourishment and shows how important it is to chew the food thoroughly, not only in order to break it up, but also in order to combine with it a sufficient supply of the chemical juices which come from the glands in the mouth. DIETETICS (Vol. 8, p. 214) shows what use your body makes of each kind of food that you eat. This article, by the late Dr. Atwater of the United States Department of Agriculture, who conducted the famous government investigation of diet, and R. D. Milner, also of the Department, contains tables showing the amount of nourishment required by persons who are doing light or heavy muscular work, as well as by those who lead a sedentary life. It will interest you to see (p. 218) how the food of an American business man compares with that of an American working in a lumber camp. The article DIETARY (Vol. 8, p. 212), describing the food given to prisoners, soldiers and sailors in various parts of the world, contains some striking information as to the possibilities of the simple life. In Sweden prisoners get only two meals a day, and those consisting chiefly of porridge or gruel; and the “punishment diet” in English prisons is one pound of bread a day, and nothing else but water. The article WATER SUPPLY (Vol. 28, p. 387), by G. F. Deacon, deals with the storage and distribution of water, and shows how it should be filtered for drinking. SEWERAGE (Vol. 24, p. 735) describes the sanitary systems which prevent the pollution of streams and wells. MINERAL WATERS (Vol. 18, p. 517) describes the great variety of springs from which the table-waters in general use are obtained. Their medicinal values are also indicated, and in the table which classifies thirty of the most important American springs it is curious to see that nearly all of them lie in the Appalachian Mountain chain.
[Sidenote: Hurtful Foods]
VEGETARIANISM (Vol. 27, p. 967), by Dr. Josiah Oldfield, describes the various systems of diet which reject flesh, the most extreme of which exclude everything but nuts, fruit and cereals, all to be eaten raw. COOKERY (Vol. 7, p. 74) shows how the digestibility of food is influenced by methods of cooking, and unhesitatingly condemns the general practice of baking meat. ADULTERATION (Vol. 1, p. 218), by Dr. Otto Hehner, describes the dangers to health which arise from the use of preservatives as well as substitutes. For the use of boracic acid, which has been proved to be slightly unwholesome, but not really dangerous, there is at any rate the excuse that it keeps food from spoiling, but the article has nothing but blame for the “coppering” of vegetables. “Many years ago some artful, if stupid, cook found that green vegetables like peas or spinach, when cooked in a copper pan, by preference a dirty one, showed a far more brilliant colour than the same vegetable cooked in earthenware or iron. The manufacturer who puts up substances like peas in pots or tins for sale produces the same effect which the cook obtained by the wilful addition of a substance known to be injurious to health, namely, sulphate of copper.” FOOD PRESERVATION (Vol. 10, p. 612) also shows the risks of using carelessly canned goods. TEMPERANCE (Vol. 26, p. 578), by Dr. Arthur Shadwell, tells the story of the reforms that have been effected since the 18th century days when London bars used to put up signs inviting customers to get “drunk for one penny” or “dead drunk for twopence;” and LIQUOR LAWS (Vol. 16, p. 759) describes temperance legislation in all parts of the world, with a most interesting section on prohibition in the United States. DRUNKENNESS (Vol. 8, p. 601) deals specifically with the effects of excess on the health.
ALIMENTARY CANAL (Vol. 1, p. 663), by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, describes all the organs of the body that deal with food. DIGESTIVE ORGANS (Vol. 8, p. 262), by Dr. Andrew Gillespie, shows how indigestion arises, and DYSPEPSIA (Vol. 8, p. 786) describes the symptoms caused by habitual indigestion. METABOLIC DISEASES (Vol. 18, p. 195), by Dr. Noel Paton, covers all the maladies arising from defective nutrition. CORPULENCE (Vol. 7, p. 192) tells about the reduction of superfluous fat, while FASTING (Vol. 10, p. 193) and HUNGER AND THIRST (Vol. 13, p. 931) discuss the intentional or accidental cutting down of the usual food supply. FAMINE (Vol. 10, p. 166) gives a most interesting account of the disasters with which crop failures still threaten Asiatic countries. The feeding of young children is, of course, a distinct subject, and is treated in great detail in the article INFANCY (Vol. 14, p. 513), by Dr. Harriet Hennessy.
[Sidenote: Sleep and the Want of it]
SLEEP (Vol. 25, p. 238), by Prof. McKendrick, is an elaborate study of the curious changes in the action of the brain and other organs which take place during slumber. INSOMNIA (Vol. 14, p. 644) is a practical article on the causes and treatment of sleeplessness. Between absolutely lying awake and obtaining a really good night’s rest there are many intermediate stages, and the article DREAM (Vol. 8, p. 558) contains a great deal of curious information about disturbed sleep. SOMNAMBULISM (Vol. 25, p. 393) shows that when dreams are vivid enough to produce sleepwalking there must be nervous trouble calling for immediate treatment. NARCOTICS (Vol. 19, p. 239) describes the dangers of the drugs to produce sleep; and in HYPNOTISM (Vol. 14, p. 201) and SUGGESTION (Vol. 26, p. 48) there is a full account of the treatment frequently used for sleeplessness and other nervous disorders.
[Sidenote: The Right Kind of Air]
The effect of climates upon health is the subject of a special section (Vol. 6, p. 526) of the article CLIMATE. VENTILATION (Vol. 27, p. 1008) shows how to secure fresh air in the house without draughts. DUST (Vol. 8, p. 713), by Dr. Aitken, the inventor of the ingenious machine for counting the particles of dust floating in the atmosphere, gives a very full account of the impurities in the air. HEATING (Vol. 13, p. 160) contains descriptions and diagrams of the best methods of warming houses, and there is at the end of the article an account of the system of steam heating employed at Lockport, N. Y., where buildings anywhere within three miles of the central plant are heated at a very moderate cost.
[Sidenote: General Hygiene]
BATHS (Vol. 3, p. 514), and HYDROPATHY (Vol. 14, p. 165), and BALNEOTHERAPEUTICS (Vol. 3, p. 284) describe all the bathing treatments in which water, steam and hot air are employed. Electric baths are described in ELECTROTHERAPEUTICS (Vol. 9, p. 249), and AEROTHERAPEUTICS deals with compressed air baths. MASSAGE (Vol. 17, p. 863), by Dr. Arthur Shadwell, describes all the systems of rubbing. GYMNASTICS (Vol. 12, p. 752) gives an account of the Swedish and other systems of hygienic exercise; and out-door exercises of every kind are described in the articles mentioned in the chapter of Readings in Connection with Recreations and Vacations. Two other articles which relate to general hygiene are DISINFECTANTS (Vol. 8, p. 312) and ANTISEPTICS (Vol. 2, p. 146). The proper care of the hair is indicated in the article BALDNESS (Vol. 3, p. 243), where prescriptions for lotions are given.
[Sidenote: Various Diseases]
The articles already named cover very fully the application of medical science to the ordinary routine of life, and will help you to regulate wisely your habits in regard to eating, sleeping and to the general care of your body. It may be the case that you wish, for your own sake, or for the sake of some member of your family, to carry your reading further in respect to some one disease or some one part of the body. In the list of articles at the end of this chapter you will find more than two hundred, each of which deals with one disease, such as rheumatism, catarrh, malaria or neuralgia. In the case of a very simple trouble you will find directions for treatment, as for example in the article CORN, where you are advised to use a solution of salicylic acid in collodion, or, for a soft corn, to paint it with spirits of camphor. Where the trouble is anything more serious, you should of course consult a doctor, but you will understand what he tells you all the better, and worry less, if you have read an article, which describes the usual course of the disease.
[Sidenote: Parts of the Body]
Again, you may have a special reason for wishing to learn all you can about some one part of the body: the eye, the ear, or the heart. There are fifty articles, in the list below, each dealing with some one organ or part of the body. The illustrations in these articles will help you to understand the exact position of any trouble which you have read about in the article on a disease affecting that particular part. Another set of articles divides the body into groups of organs, one dealing with the NERVOUS SYSTEM, another with the MUSCULAR SYSTEM, another with the RESPIRATORY SYSTEM, and so on. Then you have the five general articles: ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, PATHOLOGY, THERAPEUTICS and SURGERY, which outline all medical science. The article MEDICINE gives a complete history of medical science, and its section on Modern Progress reviews all that has been accomplished within recent years.
[Sidenote: More Advanced Study]
Beginning with the six articles just mentioned, and then taking the more detailed articles in the groups into which their subjects divide them, it is quite possible to follow in the Britannica a complete course of reading on medicine and surgery, and you may desire to do that, just as someone else likes to read about geology or astronomy. But do not forget that no amount of reading can give you more than a theoretical knowledge. When your doctor discovers what is the nature of your illness (which is much the most difficult part of his work), and when he gives you the treatment you need, his eye is comparing what it sees in your case, and his hand is comparing what it touches in your case, with the thousands of observations that he has made in the wards and in the operating theatre of the hospital. Without going through the course that he has gone through in the dissecting room, and studying the living body as he has studied it, you can never know what he knows. But you will be a more understanding patient, and a better nurse, if occasion brings nursing for you to do, if you have learned something of medical science from the Britannica.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ARTICLES IN THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA RELATING TO MEDICAL SCIENCE
Abattoir Abdomen Abortion Abscess Abscission Acne Aconite Acromegaly Actinomycosis (Streptotrichosis) Acupressure Acupuncture Adam’s Apple Addison’s Disease Adenoids Adulteration Aerotherapeutics Ague Ala Albuminuria Alienist Alimentary Canal Amaurosis Ambulance Anaemia Anaesthesia and Anaesthetics Anatomy Aneurysm, or Aneurism Angina Pectoris Animal Heat Ankle Ankylosis, or Anchylosis Ankylostomiasis Anodyne Antiseptics Aphasia Aphemia Apnoea Aponeurosis Apophysis Apoplexy Apothecary Appendicitis Apyrexia Araroba Powder Arm Arnica Arteries Arthritis Articulation Arytenoid Asafetida Ascites Asphyxia Asthma Athetosis Atrophy Auscultation Autopsy Bacteriology Baldness Balneotherapeutics Balsam Baths Bedsore Belladonna Beriberi Bhang Bibirine Bilharziosis Blackwater Fever Bladder Bladder and Prostate Diseases Blindness Blister Blood Blood-letting Boil Bone Bow-leg Brain Breast Bright’s Disease Bronchiectasis Bronchitis Bronchotomy Bunion Burns and Scalds Caesarean Section Caisson Disease Cajaput Oil Calabar Bean Cancer, or Carcinoma Cantharides Capsicum Carbuncle Cartilage Castor Oil Catalepsy Catarrh Caul Chicken-pox Chilblains Chirurgeon Cholera Chamomile, or Camomile Flowers Climacteric Cleft Palate and Hare-Lip Clinic Club-foot Cod-Liver Oil Coelom and Serous Membranes Colic Colon Coma Connective Tissues Constipation Convulsions Corn Corpulence or Obesity Cramp Cremation Cretinism Croton Oil Croup Cubebs Cupping Delirium Dengue Dentistry Diabetes Diaphoretics Diaphragm Diarrhoea Dietary Dietetics Digestive Organs Digitalis Dilatation Dill Diphtheria Dipsomania Disinfectants Diuretics Dropsy Drowning and Life Saving Drug Drunkenness Ductless Glands Dysentery Dyspepsia Ear Eczema Elaterium Elbow Electrotherapeutics Elephantiasis Emetics Emphysema Enteritis Epilepsy Epistaxis Epithelial, Endothelial and Glandular Tissues Equilibrium Ergot, or Spurred Rye Erysipelas Eucalyptus Euphorbium Excretion Eye Face Fauces Favus Fever Fibrin Filariasis Finger Fistula Food Foot Frostbite Fumigation Galangal Galbanum Gall Gamboge Gangrene Gastric Ulcer Gastritis Gelsemium Ginseng Goitre Gout Guaco, Huaco, or Guao Guaiacum Guarana Guinea-Worm Gynaecology Haematocele Haemophilia Haemorrhage Haemorrhoids Hammer-toe Hand Hashish Hay Fever, or Summer Catarrh Head Heart Heel Hernia Herpes Hip Homoeopathy Hospital Humane Society, Royal Hunger and Thirst Hydrocele Hydrocephalus Hydropathy Hydrophobia, or Rabies Hygiene Hypertrophy Hypnotism Hypochondriasis Hysteria Icthyosis or Xeroderma Imbecile Infancy Influenza Insanity Insomnia Intestinal Obstruction Intestine Intoxication Ipecacuanha Jaborandi Jalap Jaundice Jaw Joints Kámalá Kala-Azar Kidney Diseases Kino Knee Kousso Laryngitis Laudanum Lead Poisoning Leg Leontiasis Ossea Leprosy Lethargy Lichen Ligament Lip Liver Lobe Locomotor Ataxia Lumbago Lung Lupus Lymph Lymphatic System Malaria Malta Fever Mammary Gland Massage Matrix Measles Medicine Medical Education Medical Jurisprudence Ménière’s Disease Meningitis Metabolic Diseases Midwife Mineral Waters Morphine Mortification Mouth and Salivary Glands Mumps Muscle and Nerve Muscular System Myelitis Myxoedema Naevus Narcotics Navel Necrosis Nepenthes Nerve Nervous System Nettlerash, or Urticaria Neuralgia Neurasthenia Neuritis Neuropathology Nose Nosology Nostalgia Nursing Nutrition Nux Vomica Obstetrics Oesophagus Officinal Olfactory System Ophthalmology Opium Ovariotomy Pain Palate Pancreas Paralysis or Palsy Paranoia Parasitic Diseases Pathology Pediculosis Pellagra Pelvis Pemphigus Pepsin Peritonitis Perspiration Phagocytosis Pharmacology Pharmacopoeia Pharmacy Pharyngitis Pharynx Phlebitis Phrenology Phthisis Physiology Picrotoxin Pinto Pityriasis Versicolor Placenta Plague Pleurisy or Pleuritis Pneumonia Podophyllin Poison Polypus Poultice Prognosis Pruritus Psoriasis Psorospermiasis Ptomaine Poisoning Puberty Public Health, Law of Puerperal Fever Purpura Pulse Quarantine Quassia Quinine Quinsy Raynaud’s Disease Relapsing Fever Reproductive System Respiratory System Rhamnus Purshiana Rhatany, or Krameria Root Rheumatism Rheumatoid Arthritis Rhubarb Rickets Ringworm St. Vitus’ Dance, or Chorea Salep Salicin, Salicinum Sanatorium Sandalwood Sandarach Santonin Sarsaparilla Scabies, or Itch Scalp Scarlet Fever Sciatica Scrofula, or Struma Scurvy Sea-Sickness Seborrhoea Senega Senna Sepsis Sewerage Shock or Collapse Shoulder Sinew Skeleton Skin and Exoskeleton Skin Diseases Skull Slaughter-house Sleep Sleeping-sickness Smallpox Sneezing Somnambulism Spinal Cord Spleen Sprue Squill Stammering or Stuttering Starvation Stethoscope Stomach Stramonium Strychnine Sumbul, or Sumbal Sunstroke Supra-renal Extract Surgery Surgical Instruments Sweating-sickness Sweetbread Sympathetic System Syncope Taraxacum Teeth Temperance Tetanus Therapeutics Thorax Throat Thyroid Tongue Tonsillitis Toxicology Tracheotomy Trachoma Trichinosis Tuberculosis Tumour Typhoid Fever Typhus Fever Ulcer Upas Urinary System Vaccination Valerian Varicose Veins Vascular System Vegetarianism Veins Venereal Diseases Viburnum Vivisection Voice Wart Water-supply Whitlow Whooping-Cough Windpipe Wound Wrist Wry-neck X-Ray Treatment Yaws Yellow Fever Zymotic Diseases
L. GEOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATION
[Sidenote: A Library of Geography]
The Britannica devotes nearly one fourth of all its space to geographical subjects. You may miss the full significance of this statement; therefore let us put it differently. The matter in the Britannica on geography is equivalent to more than 100 ordinary volumes each containing 100,000 words, which, put on shelves about 5 feet long, would fill a section in your library 5 shelves high. But by the use of new India paper, this same material on geography, combined with three times as much on other subjects of importance, occupies in the Britannica less than 3 feet of shelf space. The unity of plan and treatment and the high authority of the Britannica in these articles are far beyond comparison with that you could get in the most wisely and carefully selected hundred volumes on Geography that would give an equivalent number of words.
[Sidenote: A Science as well as a Body of Facts]
Geographical information is so useful that the student is likely to overlook the scientific importance of geography in itself. The articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica described in this chapter, besides giving the fullest information on countries, cities, towns, rivers, mountains, etc., trace the development of the science from its beginning; and the gradual increase of geographical knowledge, as told in the Britannica, is a story of fine out-of-door adventure, of just the kind of spirited action that has supplied the theme of the most popular works of fiction.
This chapter will suggest an outline course of reading in geography, systematically grouping the more important articles in the Britannica.
The starting point for this course of study is the article GEOGRAPHY (Vol. 11, p. 619), equivalent in length to 70 pages of this Guide, written by Hugh R. Mill, author of Hints on the Choice of Geographical Books, etc. The story that it tells us is a most interesting one.
[Sidenote: What Early Writers Taught about the Earth]
The early Greeks thought of the earth as a flat disk, circular or elliptical in outline; and even in Homeric times this supposition had “acquired a special definiteness by the introduction of the idea of the ocean river bounding the whole.” Hecataeus recognized two continents on the circular disk. Herodotus, traveler and historian both (see the article HERODOTUS Vol. 13, p. 381, by George Rawlinson and Edward M. Walker), who knew only the lands around the roughly elliptical Mediterranean Sea, was certain that the earth was not a circle because it was longer from east to west than from north to south, and he distinguished three continents, adding Africa to Europe and Asia. “The effect of Herodotus’s hypothesis that the Nile must flow from west to east before turning north in order to balance the Danube running from west to east before turning south lingered in the maps of Africa down to the time of Mungo Park.” Aristotle (see also the article ARISTOTLE, Vol. 2, p. 501, by Thomas Case, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and author of Physical Realism, etc.,) was the real founder of scientific geography. “He demonstrated the sphericity of the earth by three arguments, two of which are important ... only a sphere could always throw a circular shadow on the moon during an eclipse; and that the shifting of the horizon and the appearance of new constellations ... as one travelled from north to south, could only be explained on the hypothesis that the earth was a sphere.... He formed a comprehensive theory of the variations of climate with latitude and season ... speculated on the differences in the character of races of mankind living in different climates, and correlated the political forms of communities with their situation on a seashore, or in the neighborhood of natural strongholds.” The article PTOLEMY (Vol. 22, p. 618), equivalent to 27 pages of this Guide, by the late Sir Edward Herbert Bunbury, the historian of ancient geography, and Dr. C. R. Beazley, author of The Dawn of Modern Geography, etc., should be studied in conjunction with the summary, in the article Geography, of Ptolemy’s achievements. “He concentrated in his writings the final outcome of all Greek geographical learning,” but his great aim was to collect and compare all existing determinations of latitude and estimates of longitude, and to solve the problem of representing the curved surface of the earth on the flat surface of a map.
[Sidenote: Geography in the Middle Ages]
The science of geography was at a low ebb in Christendom during the Middle Ages, when verbal interpretation of the Scriptures led the Church to oppose the spherical theory and also the theory of the motion of the earth. But among the Arabs, geography was kept alive—especially by Al-Mamun (see the article MAMUN) (Vol. 17, p. 533), who had Ptolemy translated into Arabic.
[Sidenote: New World: New Geography]
The story of the great discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries is outlined later in the article GEOGRAPHY. The effect on geographical theory was enormous.
The old arguments of Aristotle and the old measurements of Ptolemy were used by Toscanelli and Columbus in urging a westward voyage to India; and mainly on this account did the crossing of the Atlantic rank higher in the history of scientific geography than the laborious feeling out of the coast-line of Africa. But not until the voyage of Magellan shook the scales from the eyes of Europe did modern geography begin to advance. Discovery had outrun theory; the rush of new facts made Ptolemy practically obsolete in a generation, after having been the fount and origin of all geography for a millennium.
In the century and a half after the discovery of America important theoretical work was done by Peter Apian, Sebastian Münster, Philip Cluwer, Nathanael Carpenter and Bernhard Varenius, for which see the biographical articles. The next century (1650–1760) saw little worth mentioning in geographical theory or method. Then, with the sudden burst of activity that so often follows scientific hibernation, came the important work of Torbern Bergman, a Swedish chemist and a pupil of the great botanist Linnaeus, and the lectures delivered at Königsberg after 1765 by the German philosopher Kant. They both put new stress on physical geography—see the articles on BERGMAN (Vol. 3, p. 774) and KANT (Vol. 15, p. 662). Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Ritter (see the articles on both) in the first half of the 19th century supported, the one the unity of nature, and the other the comparative method, thus preparing the way for Darwin’s evolutionary theory, which “has become the unifying principle in geography.” Since the adoption of this theory, some of the more important names in geographical theory—each the subject of an article in the Britannica which the student should read—are: Baron von Richthofen, Hermann Wagner, Elisée Reclus and A. de Lapparent.
[Sidenote: Geographical Discovery]
Early travel and exploration is a story of varied interest even when we approach it from the only side on which we have material—that is to say “geographical exploration from the Mediterranean centre.”
Early conquest of outlying peoples by the warlike kings of Egypt and Assyria may have momentarily increased geographical knowledge, but it is unimportant in the large story. The first great explorers were the earliest traders, the Phoenicians and their African colonists, the Carthaginians, who traded throughout the Mediterranean, possibly on the east coast of Africa and in the northern seas, and almost certainly on the west coast of Africa. For details supplementing the outline in the article GEOGRAPHY (p. 623, Vol. 11), see the articles PHOENICIA (Vol. 21, pp. 454–455), SIDON, TYRE, OPHIR, CARTHAGE, and HANNO, the African explorer. On the only Greek explorer of eminence see the article on PYTHEAS of Marseilles (Vol. 22, p. 703), who, about 330 B.C., explored the British coast and the Baltic, and may have gone as far north as Iceland. Alexander the Great (see the biographical article) and his successors explored the East, “thus opening direct intercourse between Grecian and Hindu civilization.”
The Romans were poor seamen and accomplished little as explorers. It has often been pointed out that the Greeks spoke of the “watery ways” of the sea, considering it a highway, but that the Romans, centuries later too, called the sea “dissociable,” that is “preventing and hindering intercourse.”
[Sidenote: The Arabs and Northmen]
The Arabs were the leading geographers of the Middle Ages, and among their great travelers on whom there are separate articles in the Britannica are MASUDI, IBN HAUKAL, IDRISI, and in the 14th century IBN BATUTA. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Norseman Ohthere rounded the North Cape and saw the midnight sun; Iceland was colonized from Norway; Eric the Red discovered Greenland; and his son Leif Ericsson sailed along a part of the North American coast: see the articles ICELAND, GREENLAND, VINLAND, LEIF ERICSSON and THORFINN KARLSEFNI.
The crusades made Europe a little more familiar with the East and opened the way for travel and pilgrimage. In general see the summary Results of the Crusades (p. 546, Vol. 7) at the close of the article CRUSADES; and particularly see BENJAMIN OF TUDELA (Vol. 3, p. 739) for a Jewish traveler of the 12th century who went as far east as the frontiers of China.
[Sidenote: 13th Century]
Before the new age of real exploration began, in the 15th century, there was an age of travel, especially in Asia during the 13th century, which did much to rouse popular curiosity about the ends of the earth. Though these travelers were not scientifically trained, modern research shows a remarkable proportion of fact in their stories. The great names of this era: Joannes de Plano Carpini, a friend of St. Francis of Assisi and head of a Catholic mission to Mongolia; William of Rubruquis, a Fleming who went to Tartary under orders from Louis IX of France; Hayton, King of Armenia, who traveled in Mongolia about the middle of the century; Odoric, a Catholic friar of the 14th century; and Marco Polo,
the first to trace a route across the whole longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen; the first to speak of the new and brilliant court which had been established at Peking; the first to reveal China in all its wealth and vastness, and to tell of the nations on its borders; the first to tell more of Tibet than its name, to speak of Burma, of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin-China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra and of other islands of the archipelago, of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, of Ceylon and its sacred peak, of India but as a country seen and partially explored; the first in medieval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian Empire of Abyssinia, and of the semi-Christian island of Sokotra, and to speak, however dimly, of Zanzibar, and of the vast and distant Madagascar; whilst he carries us also to the remotely opposite region of Siberia and the Arctic shores, to speak of dog-sledges, white bears and reindeer-riding Tunguses.
See the articles CARPINI, RUBRUQUIS, HAYTON, ODORIC, and POLO, by C. R. Beazley, author of The Dawn of Modern Geography, and Sir Henry Yule, author of Cathay and the Way Thither and The Book of Ser Marco Polo.
A little later were the Spaniard Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo who traveled to Samarkand; the Italians Nicola de’Conti whose travels in India were written by Poggio Bracciolini, secretary to Pope Eugene IV, and Ludovico di Varthema, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1503. See the articles CLAVIJO, CONTI, POGGIO, himself a traveler, and VARTHEMA.
[Sidenote: Portuguese Explorers]
The construction of the mariner’s compass gave a new impulse to navigation and discovery. “Portugal took the lead along this new path, and foremost among her pioneers stands Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460).... The great westward projection of the coast of Africa and the islands to the north-west of that continent, were the principal scene of the work of mariners sent out at his expense; but his object was to push onward and reach India from the Atlantic.” The account of Portuguese discoveries in the article GEOGRAPHY (p. 625) should be supplemented by the articles HENRY OF PORTUGAL (Vol. 13, p. 296), by C. R. Beazley, author of Prince Henry the Navigator and The Dawn of Modern Geography: DIOGO GOMEZ and BARTOLOMEU DIAZ DE NOVAES (Vol. 8, p. 172), also by C. R. Beazley, PERO DE COVILHAM, VASCO DA GAMA, PRESTER JOHN, by Sir Henry Yule, and FERNÃO MENDES PINTO, by Edgar Prestage, lecturer in Portuguese, University of Manchester.
[Sidenote: Columbus and America]
We have now come to a point in the story where it begins to be more familiar to us all. “The Portuguese, following the lead of Prince Henry, continued to look for the road to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The same end was sought by Christopher Columbus, following the suggestion of Toscanelli, and under-estimating the diameter of the globe, by sailing due west.” The discovery and early exploration of America are told in the following articles, selected from a long list—see also the chapter in this Guide on American History:—
COLUMBUS and VESPUCCI, both by C. R. Beazley; PINZON, dealing with the three members of the family; CABOT, by H. P. Biggar, author of The Voyages of the Cabots to Greenland; PIZARRO; BALBOA; CORTEZ; SOTO; AVILES; CARTIER, by H. P. Biggar; RIBAULT; HAKLUYT, by C. R. Beazley and C. H. Coote, formerly of the map department, British Museum; and for exploration in the Pacific, MAGELLAN, by C. R. Beazley, DRAKE, THOMAS CAVENDISH, JOHN DAVIS, SIR RICHARD HAWKINS, etc.
[Sidenote: Recent American Exploration]
Exploration in the United States, particularly as connected with westward expansion may be studied to advantage in the Britannica. See especially the articles DANIEL BOONE, RUFUS PUTNAM, GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, WILLIAM CLARK, MERIWETHER LEWIS, ZEBULON M. PIKE, STEPHEN AUSTIN, MARCUS WHITMAN, JOHN C. FREMONT, F. V. HAYDEN, J. W. POWELL, and B. L. E. BONNEVILLE; and also the earlier part of the historical section in each article on a state of the Union.
[Sidenote: The Far East]
In the Orient the principal explorers mentioned in the article GEOGRAPHY and treated each in a separate article are: the Englishmen, SIR JAMES LANCASTER, THOMAS CORYATE, SIR ANTHONY SHIRLEY, SIR THOMAS HERBERT and SIR THOMAS ROE; the German ENGELBRECHT KAEMPFER; and, among many great Dutch navigators, ABEL JANSZOON TASMAN. On this period see also INDIA (especially pp. 404–406, Vol. 14); JAPAN, Foreign Intercourse (p. 224, et seqq., Vol. 15); FRANCISCO DE XAVIER; MALAY ARCHIPELAGO (p. 469, Vol. 17); TASMANIA; NEW GUINEA, etc.
[Sidenote: Missionaries]
The geographical work of missionaries has been remarkable—perhaps none of it more so than the survey of China by Jesuit missionaries. “They first prepared a map of the country round Peking, which was submitted to the emperor Kang-hi, and, being satisfied with the accuracy of the European method of surveying, he resolved to have a survey made of the whole empire on the same principles. This great work was begun in July, 1708, and the completed maps were presented to the emperor in 1718. The records preserved in each city were examined, topographical information was diligently collected, and the Jesuit fathers checked their triangulation by meridian altitudes of the sun and pole star and by a system of remeasurements. The result was a more accurate map of China than existed, at that time, of any country in Europe.”
There was some 18th century exploration of importance in Arabia: see the article KARSTEN NIEBUHR; in Africa: see the articles JAMES BRUCE; JOHN LEDYARD, an American; and MUNGO PARK; and in South America: see C. M. DE LA CONDAMINE, PIERRE BOUGUER, etc. But the Pacific was the great field of exploration in this century and “the three voyages of Captain James Cook form an era in the history of geographical discovery.” See the articles JAMES COOK, COMTE DE LA PEROUSE, JOSEPH-ANTOINE BRUNI D’ENTRECASTEUX, WILLIAM BLIGH, GEORGE VANCOUVER, and local articles like HAWAII, TAHITI, etc.
[Sidenote: Arctic Exploration]
The story of Polar exploration is told in brief in the article GEOGRAPHY (p. 629) but there are more detailed accounts in the article POLAR REGIONS, by H. R. Mill and Fridtjof Nansen, the polar explorer, which is illustrated with maps of the North Polar and South Polar regions. This should be further supplemented by the following biographical sketches: PYTHEAS, CABOT, CORTE-REAL, WILLOUGHBY, STEVEN BOROUGH, FROBISHER, JOHN DAVIS, BARENTS, HUDSON, BAFFIN, SCORESBY, BERING, JAMES COOK, JOHN FRANKLIN, SIR W. E. PARRY, SIR JOHN ROSS, JOHN RAE, SIR R. J. L. M. MCCLURE, SIR F. L. MCCLINTOCK, SIR E. A. INGLEFIELD, E. K. KANE, CHARLES HALL, NORDENSKIÖLD, NARES; SIR C. R. MARKHAM, DELONG, A. W. GREELY, NANSEN, PEARY, etc., and on antarctic exploration the articles DUMONT D’URVILLE, CHARLES WILKES, SIR JAMES C. ROSS, etc. The article POLAR REGIONS includes an elaborate account of the physiography of the Arctic region (p. 954, Vol. 21) and of the Antarctic (p. 969 of same Vol.), dealing with geology, climate, pressure, flora, fauna, people, ocean depths, temperature and salinity, and marine biological conditions, etc.
[Sidenote: Maps]
The student of geography should read with great care the article MAP (Vol. 17, p. 629), equivalent to 110 pages of this Guide, written by Lieut. Col. Charles Frederick Close, author of Text-Book of Topographical Surveying, Alexander Ross Clark, lately in charge of the trigonometrical operations of the British Ordnance Survey, and Dr. Ernest George Ravenstein, author of A Systematic Atlas, etc. The article has 59 illustrations and it deals with: classification, scale, delineation of ground, contours, selection of names and orthography; measurement on maps; relief maps; globe; map printing; history of cartography (equivalent to 55 pages of this Guide), with reproductions of many early maps; topographical surveys, summarizing the work done in different parts of the world; and map projections.
The maps in the Britannica are of the utmost value. They include nearly 150 full-page maps, many of them in colours, all prepared especially for this edition, and in accordance with the principles laid down in the article MAP.
[Sidenote: Physiographic Articles]
Of articles on physiographic topics possibly the most important are those on the several continents, each accompanied by a map in colours from the great German cartographic establishment of Justus Perthes, Gotha. Of particular importance to the American reader are the contributions of Prof. W. M. Davis of Harvard on physiography in the articles AMERICA and NORTH AMERICA, and of J. C. Branner, now president of Leland Stanford University, on SOUTH AMERICA. Then read the article OCEAN AND OCEANOGRAPHY, by Dr. Otto Krümmel, professor of geography at Kiel and author of Handbuch der Ozeanographie, and H. R. Mill, editor of The International Geography. This single article is equivalent to 65 pages of this Guide. Then study the articles on the different seas—for instance, ATLANTIC OCEAN, by H. N. Dickson, author of Papers on Oceanography, etc.; PACIFIC OCEAN, by the same author, with a section on its islands, and with a map in colours; Dr. Dickson’s article on the MEDITERRANEAN SEA; the article GREAT LAKES, the separate article on each of these lakes, GREAT SALT LAKE, etc., and the article LAKE, by Sir John Murray, the famous British geographer, which contains statistical tables of the important lakes.
Two important general articles are: CLIMATE AND CLIMATOLOGY, with 2 plates, 13 figures and several tables, by R. DeCourcy Ward, professor of climatology, Harvard; and METEOROLOGY, by Dr. Cleveland Abbe, professor of meteorology, U. S. Weather Bureau. These articles, both by Americans, deal with these subjects with particular attention to American conditions. They should be supplemented by a study of the articles: SKY; ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY; CLOUDS, illustrated with remarkably fine pictures of the different cloud-types; and the separate articles on meteorological instruments.
[Sidenote: The Britannica Gazetteer]
What has already been said, although it suggests rather than exhausts the subject of geography in the Britannica, will show that the student will find in it a text-book of geography which is unparalleled elsewhere in size, scope, authority and interest. Besides, the Britannica contains the equivalent of a great gazetteer and atlas. Place-names are so entered in the Index (Vol. 29) that their location on maps may be discovered immediately and the articles on towns, villages, cities, states, etc., are full and authoritative. The reader who turns to an article in the Britannica on some small town or city with a population of 5,000 or less finds there within the limits of a few lines of print the results of elaborate research and laborious correspondence with local authorities. Such articles give not merely location, population, railway service, commercial and manufacturing information, description of buildings, etc., but a historical sketch of the place, in which every date and detail has been verified with no sparing of expense or pains.
[Sidenote: The Britannica as a Guide Book]
The Encyclopaedia Britannica is not merely a geographical text-book and gazetteer, however. It is an excellent guide book. The same care in details that makes it valuable as a gazetteer makes it a wonderful companion for the traveler, full of literary charm and readableness. Such articles as NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, BOSTON, SAN FRANCISCO and ST. LOUIS contain valuable sketches of the culture, literary and artistic, of these cities. The world’s “show” and vacation spots have elaborate treatment—for instance the English LAKE DISTRICT, RIVIERA, CATSKILLS, LAKE GEORGE, YOSEMITE, GRAND CANYON, etc.
Besides the student can turn immediately in the Britannica, as he could in no book purely geographical, from the description of a locality, say Mount Vernon, Stockbridge, Cooperstown, Tarrytown or Salem, to the biographies that these articles make him need,—Washington, Jonathan Edwards, Cooper, Irving and Hawthorne. See the last chapter in this Guide for an illustration of this use of the Britannica.
The following list of general articles on geography will give the reader an idea of the great scope of the Britannica in geographical literature. If this list included all the geographical articles in the Britannica it would be nearly 60 times as long. For a complete list classified by different continents and countries see the Index Volume, beginning on p. 895.
Afterglow Aiguille Alp Anemometer Antarctic Anthelion Anticyclone Antilia Antipodes Antonini Itinerarium Aquae Archipelago Arctic Arete Arroyo Atlantis Atmosphere Atoll Aurora Polaris Avalanche Bahr Bar Bayou Beach Beaufort Scale Bench-mark Bergschrund Berm Bight Blizzard Bog Bora Bore Brazil Breeze Brickfielder British Empire Brocken, Spectre of Butte Buys Ballot’s Law Canyon “Challenger” Expedition Chart Chinook Cirque Climate and Climatology Cloud Cloudburst Coast Col Combe Continent Continental Shelf Contour, Contour-line Coral-reefs Cordillera Corrie Crag Creek Crevasse Cuesta Cyclone Dalle Dawn Delta Desert Dew Dip Divide Doldrums Donga Down Dust Eagre Earth, Figure of the Earth Pillar El Dorado Esker Estuary Etesian Wind Euroclydon Fell Ferrel’s Law Fjord Floe Flood Plain Fog Föhn Frost Geodesy Geography Geoid Giant’s Kettle Glacier Great Circle Gromatici Ground Ice Gulf Stream Hachure Hail Halo Harmattan Helm Wind Hill Horse Latitudes Horst Hummock Hurricane Hydrography Hygrometer Iceberg Isabnormal (or Isanomalous) Lines Island Isles of the Blest Isobar Isoclinic Lines Isodynamic Lines Isogonic Lines Isotherm Isthmus Itinerarium Jebel Jungle Kame Khamsin Kuro Siwo Lagoon Lake Latitude Leste Levée Leveche Lightning Lithosphere Longitude Lowland Loxodrome Maelstrom Maestro Maidan Map Marsh Massif Meridian Mesa Meteorology Mirage Mistral Monadnock Monsoon Moor Moraine Moulin Mountain Névé Norther Nullah Nunatak Nyanza Oasis Ocean and Oceanography Ophir Orography Pampero Peninsula Plain Plateau Playa Polder Pond Prairie Quagmire Rain Rainbow Rand Ras Reef River Roaring Forties Sahel St. Elmo’s Fire Sargasso Sea Savanna Sea Seiche Simoom Sirocco Sleet Snow Snow-Line Sounding Squall Steppe Storm Sudd Sunshine Surge Surveying Swallow-hole Tacheometry Tarn Thalweg Theodolite Thule Thunder Timber-line Topography Tornado Trade Winds Tundra Twilight Typhoon V-shaped Depression Volcano Wadi Waterfall Watershed Waterspout Weather Wedge Wind World Zone
LI. ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY
These two sciences are devoted to the study of mankind before written history began; and they have an interest for every reader who has asked, when he was a child and had a story told him: “What happened before that?” In the chapter in this Guide on Language and Writing, we have told the story of those two great inventions which made civilization possible. The present chapter is devoted to the story of man before writing was commonly used—that is, before historical documents could exist.
Just as the study of children and their habits is something new and peculiarly characteristic of the last generation, so these sciences of anthropology and ethnology which deal with the childhood of the human race are of recent origin. But in comparison with child-psychology these two sciences are at a disadvantage in a very important respect: there are always children to be studied, but the childhood of the race is long past and remote from the student of it, save for the primitive tribes which can still be observed, and even these tribes are now scattered and few, and by contact with civilization they are rapidly losing the characteristics which invite scientific study. A hundred years ago, the opportunities for experiment and observation were far greater, but at that time savages were not seriously studied. There could, indeed, be no “science of man” before the evolutionary theory of Darwin, Wallace and Huxley had been generally accepted. Throughout this Guide we see how this theory has affected all our modern thought, modified our sciences, and even created new sciences. The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica may, indeed, be described as the authoritative and interesting story of the human activities, critically studied from the point of view of evolution. The trustworthy material is chiefly derived from observations in Australia, in the South Seas, among the North American Indians and among the still savage tribes of Africa, and from studies of the tools and other remains of early peoples. All broad conclusions must be based upon the similarity of customs among races widely separated by time and place, and upon the fact that some traces of such customs are still found among more highly civilized peoples.
The first article in a course of reading on the “science of man” in the Britannica is ANTHROPOLOGY (Vol. 2, p. 108), equivalent to 40 pages in this Guide, illustrated, by Prof. Tylor, of Oxford University, one of the founders of the science, and author of Researches into the Early History of Mankind, Primitive Culture, etc.
[Sidenote: Man’s Origin]
This great article deals first with “man’s place in Nature,” the most interesting branch of the theory of evolution. Prof. Tylor traces back the recognition of man’s structural similarity to the higher apes to Linnaeus (1735) and to the less scientific Lord Monboddo (1774 and 1778), whose simple literary style as well as his theory of the descent of man aroused the amusement and scorn of Dr. Samuel Johnson, who said that Monboddo was “as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.”
Dr. Tylor remarks that:
There are few ideas more ingrained in ancient and low civilization than that of relationship by descent between the lower animals and man. Savage and barbaric religions recognize it, and the mythology of the world has hardly a more universal theme. But in educated Europe such ideas had long been superseded by the influence of theology and philosophy, with which they seemed too incompatible.
But in 1843 Dr. J. C. Prichard, to whom Tylor gives the title that many would give to Tylor himself, “founder of modern anthropology,” insisted that
man is but an animal ... composed of the same materials, and framed on the same principles, as the creatures which he has tamed to be the servile instruments of his will, or slays for his daily food.
Dr. Tylor shows how Wallace and Darwin established a theory of human descent, and sums up the similarities and dissimilarities in anatomical construction between man and the man-like apes. Even more interesting is what the article says (p. 110) about “assigning to man his place in nature on psychological grounds.”
Huxley acknowledged an immeasurable and practically infinite divergence, ending in the present enormous psychological gulf between ape and man. It is difficult to account for this intellectual chasm as due to some minor structural difference.... Beyond a doubt, man possesses, and in some way possesses by virtue of his superior brain, a power of co-ordinating the impressions of his senses, which enables him to understand the world he lives in, and by understanding to use, resist, and even in a measure rule it. No human art shows the nature of this human attribute more clearly than does language
—although other animals have a sort of language. The article quotes Dr. A. Russel Wallace’s conclusion that man stands “apart, as not only the head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in some degree a new and distinct order of being.” And another great anatomist, Prof. St. George Mivart, says “Man’s animal body must have had a different source from that of the spiritual soul which informs it, owing to the distinctness of the two orders to which these existences severally belong.” Dr. Tylor, in citing these authorities, adds that “man embodies an immaterial and immortal, spiritual principle which no lower creature possesses, and which makes the resemblance of the apes to him but a mocking simulance.”
The answer to the question “How did man originate?” depends on the answer to the question “How did species originate?” The main points are summed up in the article ANTHROPOLOGY (on p. 112), which also deals with the fossil remains of man, especially skulls, and their bearing on the question. A more detailed discussion will be found in the articles EVOLUTION (Vol. 10, p. 22) and SPECIES (Vol. 25, p. 616).
[Sidenote: Races of Man]
The classification of man into different races is the topic next taken up by Dr. Tylor in the article ANTHROPOLOGY, and he deals particularly with classification by the “facial angle” (on which see also the article CRANIOMETRY, Vol. 7, p. 372). Different classifications are criticized and the article decides that “Huxley’s division probably approaches more nearly than any other to such a tentative classification as may be accepted.... He distinguishes four principal types of mankind, the Australioid, Negroid, Mongoloid and Xanthochroic (fair whites), adding a fifth variety, the Melanchroic (dark whites).” That races are not species, zoologically, is made plain by the fact that the offspring of parents of different races are fertile—those of different species being infertile.
[Sidenote: Antiquity of Man]
One of the questions connected with the origin of man is his antiquity. The Biblical chronology, as commonly reckoned and interpreted, allowed a time since the appearance of the original stock which seemed far too short for the apparent variation from the original species (see CHRONOLOGY, Vol. 6, p. 305). The natural sciences, notably geology, have “made it manifest that our earth must have been the seat of vegetable and animal life for an immense period of time; while the first appearance of man, though comparatively recent, is positively so remote, that an estimate between twenty and a hundred thousand years may fairly be taken as a minimum.” This geological claim is supported by the evidence of prehistoric archaeology (see the article ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol. 2, p. 344). In the caves of France and Belgium human bones have been found with the remains of fossil species of elephant, rhinoceros, hyena, bear, etc., and “the co-existence of man with a fauna now extinct or confined to other districts was brought to yet clearer demonstration by the discovery in these caves of certain drawings and carvings of the animals done by the ancient inhabitants themselves, such as a group of reindeer on a piece of reindeer horn, and a sketch of a mammoth, showing the elephant’s long hair, on a piece of a mammoth’s tusk from La Madeleine.” See Fig. 7, Plate facing p. 118, Vol. 2; the figures of the reindeer and mammoth, hairy and with upturned tusks, in Plate II, article ARCHAEOLOGY (following p. 348, Vol. 2); and of the reindeer in Plate I (Vol. 19, p. 462), and the old cave paintings of wild boars and bison from Altamira, reproduced in colour on Plate II, the next page. These paintings, marking by their technical excellence a high stage of art if not of civilization, are said by geologists to date back 50,000 years. The student will be repaid for turning a moment from the article ANTHROPOLOGY and the question of the antiquity of man to the article [Sidenote: Cave-Dwellers] CAVE (Vol. 5, p. 573), by the eminent archaeologist, W. Boyd Dawkins, and the author of Cave-hunting and Early Man in Britain. He reconstructs the civilization of the inhabitants of the pleistocene caves of the European continent (p. 576), describes the carvings and drawings of which we have just spoken, and says of the cave-dwellers:
If these remains be compared with those of existing races, it will be found that the cave-men were in the same hunter stage of civilization as the Eskimos, and that they are unlike any other races of hunters. If they were not allied to the Eskimos by blood, there can be no doubt that they handed down to the latter their art and their manner of life. The bone needles, and many of the harpoons, as well as the flint spearheads, arrowheads and scrapers, are of precisely the same form as those now in use amongst the Eskimos. The artistic designs from the caves of France, Belgium and Switzerland, are identical in plan and workmanship with those of the Eskimos.... The reindeer, which they both knew, is represented in the same way by both. The practice of accumulating large quantities of the bones of animals round their dwelling-places, and the habit of splitting the bones for the sake of the marrow, are the same in both. The hides were prepared with the same sort of instruments, and the needles with which they were sewn together are of the same pattern. The stone lamps were used by both. In both there was the same disregard for sepulture. All these facts can hardly be mere coincidences caused by both peoples leading a savage life under similar conditions. The conclusion, therefore, seems inevitable that, so far as we have any evidence of the race to which the cave-dwellers belong, that evidence points only in the direction of the Eskimos. It is to a considerable extent confirmed by a consideration of the animals found in the caves. The reindeer and musk sheep afford food to the Eskimos now in the Arctic Circle, just as they afforded it to the cave-men in Europe; and both these animals have been traced by their remains from the Pyrenees to the north-east through Europe and Asia as far as the very regions in which they now live. The mammoth and bison also have been tracked by their remains in the frozen river gravels and morasses through Siberia as far as the American side of Bering Strait. Palaeolithic man appeared in Europe with the arctic mammalia, lived in Europe with them, and in all human probability retreated to the north-east along with them.
The antiquity of man may be estimated also by the time it must have taken to deposit the soil that overlies traces of civilization,—for instance in Egypt where pottery is found 60 feet deep, while inundations from the Nile probably have not averaged more than a few inches in a century. “The most recent work of Egyptologists proves a systematic civilization to have existed in the valley of the Nile at least 6000 to 7000 years ago.” Similar testimony is given by examining the lake-dwellings of Switzerland and the kitchen middens of Denmark. On these see the articles LAKE DWELLINGS (Vol. 16, p. 91), by Joseph Anderson, keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, and SHELL-HEAPS (Vol. 24, p. 832). The latter article, in a description of the middens of Denmark, says:
Among the bones were those of the wild bull or aurochs, beaver, seal and great auk, all now extinct or rare in this region. Moreover, a striking proof of the antiquity of these shell-heaps is that they contain full-sized shells of the common oyster, which cannot live at present in the brackish waters of the Baltic except near its entrance, the inference being that the shores where the oyster at that time flourished were open to the salt sea.
The article on LAKE DWELLINGS brings out very clearly the fact that this, like other early stages of development, is to be found at widely different periods of time: in Switzerland, thousands of years ago; in Scotland and Ireland (see also the article CRANNOG, Vol. 7, p. 377) during the Christian era; and in New Guinea and Central Africa within the last few years. This is in accordance with the fact that the human race has not “matured” with equal rapidity all over the earth—that even now one race is in infancy, another in childhood, another in a transition stage like adolescence, and another in the prime of civilization.
[Sidenote: Language]
Returning to the article ANTHROPOLOGY, the next topic treated is Language. The more important points on this subject are stated in another chapter of this part of the Guide, on Language and Writing. Dr. Tylor says:
For all that known dialects prove to the contrary, on the one hand, there may have been one primitive language, from which the descendant languages have varied so widely, that neither their words nor their formation now indicate their unity in long past ages, while, on the other hand, the primitive tongues of mankind may have been numerous, and the extreme unlikeness of such languages as Basque, Chinese, Peruvian, Hottentot and Sanskrit may arise from absolute independence of origin. The language spoken by any tribe or nation is not of itself absolute evidence as to its race-affinities. This is clearly shown in extreme cases. Thus the Jews in Europe have almost lost the use of Hebrew, but speak as their vernacular the language of their adopted nation, whatever it may be.... In most or all nations of mankind, crossing or intermarriage of races has taken place between the conquering invader and the conquered native, so that the language spoken by the nation may represent the results of conquest as much or more than of ancestry.... On the other hand, the language of the warlike invader or peaceful immigrant may yield, in a few generations, to the tongue of the mass of the population, as the Northman’s was replaced by the French, and modern German gives way to English in the United States.
[Sidenote: Development of Civilization]
The last general topic in the article ANTHROPOLOGY is Development of Civilization. In connection with it the student should read the article CIVILIZATION (Vol. 6, p. 403), by Dr. H. S. Williams, editor-in-chief of The Historian’s History of the World, and particularly the first part of it dealing with early times.
[Sidenote: Ethnology]
The comparatively brief article ETHNOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY (Vol. 9, p. 849) takes up the story of man’s progress at the point where ANTHROPOLOGY stops, and deals particularly with the division of mankind into separate races. Was pleistocene man specifically one? The evidence to supply an answer to this question is of three kinds: anatomical, physiological and cultural and psychical. Human bones from this early period “show differences so slight as to admit of pathological or other explanation,” and do not prove that there were separate species. The physiological answer, that there was only one species, is given and explained in the article ANTHROPOLOGY: species cannot breed with species, and hybrids are infertile. The third answer is also in the negative. “The works of early man everywhere present the most startling resemblance.” Dr. J. C. Prichard is quoted in the article as saying that
the same inward and mental nature is to be recognized in all races of men. When we compare this fact with the observations, fully established, as to the specific instincts and separate psychical endowments of all the distinct tribes of sentient beings in the universe we are entitled to draw confidently the conclusion that all human races are of one species and one family.
If man was specifically one, where did he originate and how did he spread over the world? “As to man’s cradle-land there have been many theories, but the weight of evidence is in favour of Indo-Malaysia.” The problem of distribution “has been met by geology, which proves that the earth’s surface has undergone great changes since man’s appearance, and that continents, long since submerged, once existed, making a complete land communication from Indo-Malaysia.... Proofs no less cogent are available of the former existence of an Eurafrican continent, while the extension of Australia in the direction of New Guinea is more than probable.... The western hemisphere was probably connected with Europe and Asia, in Tertiary times.” The article ETHNOLOGY closes with a description of the four divisions of the human race proposed by Huxley, which have already been enumerated.
Separate articles supplementing these two main articles, ANTHROPOLOGY and ETHNOLOGY, especially in the field of comparative anatomy, are: ANTHROPOMETRY (Vol. 2, p. 119) for physical measurements, including the Bertillon system used to identify criminals; BRACHYCEPHALIC (Vol. 4, p. 366), or short-headed, a term applied to Indo-Chinese, Savoyards, Croatians, Lapps, etc.; DOLICHOCEPHALIC (Vol. 8, p. 388), or long-headed, like Eskimos, negroes, etc.; MESOCEPHALIC (Vol. 18, p. 179), for the type between the two; PROGNATHISM (Vol. 22, p. 424), for jaw protrusion; CRANIOMETRY (Vol. 7, p. 372) and CEPHALIC INDEX (Vol. 5, p. 684), for the measurement of skulls and heads; STEATOPYGIA (Vol. 25, p. 860), for a peculiar heaviness of hips found in some negro and other savage peoples; MONOGENISTS (Vol. 18, p. 730), on the theory that all men are descended from a common original stock; and POLYGENISTS (Vol. 22, p. 24) on the opposite theory.
[Sidenote: North American Indians]
One of the most elaborate ethnological articles in the Britannica is of particular interest to Americans, that on INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN (Vol. 14, p. 452), by Dr. A. F. Chamberlain, professor of anthropology, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. It is equivalent to more than 100 pages of this Guide, and there are also scores of brief articles on different North American Indian tribes. A few, only, of the many interesting topics treated in it may be mentioned:
The name “American Indians”—due to the mistaken early belief that the New World was a part of Asia. “Amerind” a suggested substitute. Various uses of “Indian.” French “sauvage” the original of “Siwash.”
Popular fallacies of the origin of the Indians—Welsh, “lost Ten Tribes,” etc.
Linguistic stocks. Table of languages. General description; varied character; enormous compound words, like deyeknonhsedehrihadasterasterahetakwa for “stove-polish.” Indian literature.
Migrations of Indian stocks. Tabular conspectus of 180 tribes—situation and population, degree of intermixture, condition and progress, and authorities on each.
Population, physical characteristics, race mixture.
Culture, arts, industries, religion, mythology and games.
Social organization, contact of Indians and whites, Indian wars, missions, Indian talent and capacity, syllabaries invented by Indians.
In addition to the articles on Indian tribes there are many on Indian notables—for example, PONTIAC, TECUMSEH, KING PHILIP, BLACK HAWK, BRANT, and SITTING BULL.
[Sidenote: Central America]
Interest in the Indians of Central America, popularly called Aztecs, is rather archaeological than ethnological. See in the Britannica the article CENTRAL AMERICA (Vol. 5, p. 677), by Dr. Walter Lehmann, directorial assistant of the Royal Ethnological Museum, Munich; and the article AMERICA, Ethnology and Archaeology (Vol. 1, p. 810), by O. T. Mason, late curator, Department of Anthropology, National Museum, Washington, dealing with the Indians of North, Central and South America in general. The other principal articles on races or tribes of unusual ethnographic importance are:
NEGRO (Vol. 14, p. 344), by Thomas Athol Joyce, assistant in the Department of Ethnography, British Museum,—with a section on the negro in the United States, by Walter F. Willcox, late chief statistician, United States Census Bureau; supplemented by AFRICA, Ethnology (Vol. 1, p. 325), by Mr. T. A. Joyce, with a particularly valuable classified list (p. 329) of African tribal distribution, which may be made the basis for further study by reference to articles on the separate tribes, such as BERBERS, KABYLES, MZABITES, TUAREG, etc.
POLYNESIA (Vol. 22, p. 33) for the Polynesian race; and also SAMOA (Vol. 24, p. 115) and HAWAII (Vol. 13, p. 83)
AUSTRALIA, Aborigines (Vol. 2, p. 954) and Maori. The following is a list in alphabetical order of articles on races or tribes:
Ababda Abipones Abnaki Aborigines Acholi Afars (Danakil) Agaiambo Ahom Aht Ahtena Aimak, or Eimak Ainu Akka Alfuros Algonquin Alur Amarar Anti, or Campa Apache Apalachee Arabs Arapaho Araucanians Arawak Areoi Arikara, or Aricara Artega Ashraf (Shurefa) Assiniboin Athapascan Attacapa Awadia and Fadnia Aymara Aztecs Babu Badagas Baggára Bakalai Bakhtiári Ba-Kwiri Ba-Luba Bambute Banate Bangash Barabra Bari Bashkirs Basques Battakhin Battanni Battas Batwa Bazigars Bechuana Bedouins Beja, or Bija Bellabella Bellacoola, or Bilqula Beni-Amer Beni-Israel Beothuk Berbers Bertat Bhattiana Bhils, or Bheels Bimana Bisharin Blackfoot Boer Bogos (Bilens) Bois Brûlés Bongo Botocudos Bozdar Brahui Bugis Bugti Buriats Bushmen Caddo Cagots Cahita Cahokia Cakchiquel Calchaqui Caribs Cashibo, or Carapache Catauxi Catawbas Celt Chamkanni Changos Charrua Chechenzes Chellian Cheremisses Cherokee Cheyenne Chickasaws Chimesyan Chinook Chiquitos Choctaws Cholones Chude Chukchi Chuncho Chuvashes Circassia Cocoma, or Cucamas Coeur d’Alêne Comanches Conestoga Conibos Copts Cree Creek Indians Crow Indians Cunas Curetus Czech Dawari; or Dauri Delaware Indians Dinka Dogra Dravidian Dualla Duk-Duk Durani Dyaks Engis Eskimo Ewe Falashas Fang Fanti Fellah Fiji Fingo, or Fengu Finno-Ugrian Flatheads Fox Indians Fula Funj Furfooz Galchas Gallas Gararish Ghilzai Gilyaks Gipsies Golds Gonaguas Gros Ventres Guanches Guaranis Guatos Guatusos Guaycurus Gumus Hababs Hadendoa Haida Hakkas Hamitic Races Harratin Hassania Hausa Hawawir Hazara Heroro, or Ovaherero Hindki Hipurnias Hiung-nu Hopi Hottentots Hova Huambisas Huastecs Huichol Huron Indians, North American Iquitos Iroquois Irulas Itza Ja’alin Jakuns Jats Jeveros Jibitos Jicarilla Juangs Jur (Diur) Juris Kabbabish Kabyles Kaffirs Kakar Kalapuya Kalispel Kalkas Kanaka Kanuri (Beriberi) Kara-Kalpaks Karen Kashubes Kavirondo Kaw (Kansa) Kayasth Khamtis Khattak Khazars Khevsurs Khonds Kickapoo Kiowas Kirghiz Klamath Koch Kolis Kols Korkus Koryaks Kotas Krumen Kubus Kumyks Kunbis Kurumbas Kusan Kutenai Kwakiutl Laos Lascar Latuka Legas Lepcha Lipan Lolos Madi Mahar Mahrattas Makalaka Makaraka Malays Mandan Mandingo Maneteneris Mangbettu Manyema Maori Marianas Mariposan Maroons Marri Masai Mashona Metabele Maya Mayoruna Menangkabos Mensa and Marea Meshcheryaks Meyrifab Miami Miaotsze Micmac Mikirs Mishmi (tribe) Modoc Mohave Mohawk Mohican Mohmand Monassir Montagnais Moors Moplah Mordvinians Moxos Mpongwe (Pongos) Mundas Mundrucus Muras Musa Khel Muskhogean Stock Mzabites, or Beni-Mzab Nahuatlan Stock Namasudra Nandi Navaho, or Navajo Nayar, or Nair Negritos Negro Nez Percés Niam-Niam Nuer Oerlams Ojibway Omaguas Omahas Oneida Onondaga Opata Orakzai Oraons Ostiaks Ottawa Papuans Pariah (caste) Parsees Pathan (people) Pawnee Penobscot Pequot Petchenegs Pima Polabs Ponca Pondo Potawatami Povindah Prabhu (caste) Pueblo Indians Puelche Pygmy Quiché, or Kichés Quichua Rajput Riffians Ruthenians Sahos Sakai Salishan Samoyedes Santals Semang Seminole Seneca Serers Shagia Shangalla Shans Shawnee Sherani, or Shirani Shilluh Shilluk Shinwari Shukria Sienetjo Sikh Sioux Slavs Slovaks Slovenes Songhoi Sorbs Swahili Syryenians Tajik Talaing Tamils Tarkani Tatars Tehuelche Tembu Tibbu, or Tebu Todas Toltecs Troglodytes Tshi Tuareg Tukulor (Tuculers) Tunguses Tupis Turi Turki Turkoman Turks Tuscarora Uighur Unyamwezi Ustarana Ute (Utah) Utman Khel Vaalpens Veddahs Wa Wichita Wochua Wolof (Woloff, Jolof) Wyandot (Huron) Yaos Yusafzai Zaimukht Zaparos Zenaga Zenata
[Sidenote: Terminology]
The technical terms of nearly every science are words coined from Latin and Greek roots, so that the student of these languages is at an advantage in learning any science—its terms have some meaning to him no matter how strange the science itself. But in anthropology and ethnology we come across such terms as taboo, totem, shaman and manitou. For their comprehension Latin and Greek give no aid. Each of these terms comes into English from the language of a primitive people to convey an idea at once too primitive and too complex to be expressed by any English word or by a Greek or Latin compound. “Taboo” is a Malay word meaning both “unclean” (as that word is used in the Old Testament) and “sacred”; and the idea it conveys is characteristic of the religious and social system found among the Polynesians and nearly all other peoples in a comparatively low stage of civilization, which sets persons or things apart as sacred or accursed. “Totem” is a Chippewa (North American Indian) word denoting an animal, plant, or other object chosen as the name of a whole family or tribal division. The word “shaman” comes from the Ural-Altaic (Tungus), and means “medicine-man,” a combination of priest, magician and exorcist. “Manitou” is another North American word meaning “spirit” or “genius.”
[Sidenote: Taboo and Totem]
The practice of taboo and totemism, although one word comes to us from the South Seas and the other from the American Indians, is found all over the less civilized world, and—even more important—it explains many things in the social and religious life of more civilized communities. For instance, the account by modern students of Greek and Roman religion has had to be largely rewritten in the light of what we have learned in the last two generations about taboo and totemism.
The articles TABOO (Vol. 26, p. 337) and TOTEMISM (Vol. 27, p. 79) are both by Andrew Lang, author of Custom and Myth and other standard works on folk-lore. It is unnecessary to outline these two articles here, as the two words have been defined, and the importance of the subject suggested. The reader should refer to the article on ANDREW LANG (Vol. 16, p. 171), in which it is said that “he explained the irrational elements of mythology as survivals from earlier savagery....” idealized “savage animism ... maintained the existence of high spiritual ideas among savage races, and instituted comparisons between savage practices and the occult phenomena among civilized races.” His appreciation of the culture of the savage and his remarkably interesting style should induce the student to read Lang’s other and related articles in the Britannica, especially:
FAMILY (Vol. 10, p. 158), (equivalent to 27 pages of this Guide), dealing particularly with the question of marriage as related to totemism, and the practices of marrying only out of the tribe or totem, and of marrying only within the totem (see the articles ENDOGAMY and EXOGAMY, MATRIARCHATE, POLYANDRY, POLYGAMY, LEVIRATE and COUVADE).
NAME (Vol. 19, p. 157), which discusses the relation of the name to the totem, the strange primitive custom of the individual’s having many names and concealing his true name, etc.; and also the articles FAIRY (Vol. 10, p. 134) and MYTHOLOGY (Vol. 19, p. 128).
[Sidenote: Religion]
For special forms of superstition, read the articles MAGIC, SHAMANISM, WITCHCRAFT, DEMONOLOGY and LYCANTHROPY, and in the field of religion, RELIGION, Primitive (Vol. 23, p. 63), by R. R. Marett, of Oxford University, author of The Threshold of Religion, etc. This article puts particular stress on the importance of ritual in early religion. Compare also the matter, already mentioned, on religion in the article on North American Indians with the short articles MANITOU (Vol. 17, p. 568) and GHOST DANCE (Vol. 11, p. 925). Besides, the student should road ORDEAL (Vol. 20, p. 173), PRAYER (Vol. 22, p. 256), RITUAL (Vol. 23, p. 370), SACRIFICE (Vol. 23, p. 980), ANIMISM (Vol. 2, p. 53), on the attempt to explain religion as due to the fear and worship of ghosts—and FETISHISM (Vol. 10, p. 295), by N. W. Thomas, government anthropologist to Southern Nigeria; ANCESTOR-WORSHIP (Vol. 1, p. 945), FUNERAL RITES (Vol. 11, p. 329) and PURIFICATION (Vol. 22, p. 660), all by Dr. F. C. Conybeare, author of Myth, Magic and Morals, etc.; TREE-WORSHIP (Vol. 27, p. 235) and SERPENT-WORSHIP (Vol. 24, p. 676), both bearing on totemism, by S. A. Cook, author of Religion of Ancient Palestine, etc.
[Sidenote: Biographical Study]
A course of reading on anthropology may well close with the study in the Britannica of the lives of some leaders in this science. The student will thus be familiarized with the theories of each great anthropologist—and will notice the manifold appeal of the science by seeing from what point each approached it—one from his interest in geology, another from travel, a third because of his studies in surgery or biology, another as a psychologist.
Avebury, 1st Baron Bandelier, Adolph F. A. Bastian, Adolf Brasseur de Bourbourg, C. E. Brinton, D. G. Broca, Paul Catlin, George Christy, Henry Dawkins, William Boyd Deniker, Joseph Fletcher, Alice C. Hale, Horatio Hodgson, B. H. Lartet, Edouard M’Lennan, John F. Mantegazza, Paolo Morgan, Lewis Henry Mortillet, L. L. G. de Prichard, James Cowles Schoolcraft, H. R. Tylor, Edward B. Wagner, Rudolf Waltz, Theodor
LII. MATHEMATICS
There is no single book in the English language, save the Britannica, in which the whole body of mathematical knowledge is examined and classified with special reference to the inter-relation of its various parts and to the results obtained in the neighboring domains of physics, chemistry, and engineering. Text-books necessarily have a somewhat narrow purpose, namely to teach the student how to solve problems in a single given field; wide views over the surrounding country can, therefore, seldom be afforded. The Britannica, however, does for English readers, what the Encyclopädie der Mathematischen Wissenchaften does for German, and more, in that in the Britannica the shadowy borderlands are illuminated and the roads cleared which connect the mathematical and the experimental sciences. In fact if anyone possessed every mathematical text-book that had ever been published, he would still find the articles full of suggestion to him, for in them the whole subject has been presented, in all its complex bearings, logically and as a whole.
[Sidenote: History]
It is nearly 4,000 years since a mathematician was last deified in the person of Amenophis, and as far as can be ascertained only one other of his calling ever received this honour, and he also was an Egyptian who had entered into his godship a full thousand years earlier (Vol. 9, p. 46). To the ancient Egyptians mathematics owes the first fragmentary ideas of arithmetic and mensuration, but little else, for despite their amazing mechanical achievements very little record of purely mathematical knowledge has come down from them. It was the Greeks, starting with Thales (600 B.C.), who really created the sciences of geometry and numbers. To them we owe the great abstract ideas which dominate the science. The Greek period lasted till the capture of Alexandria by the Mohammedans, A.D. 640, at which time the Arabian school took shape, and to it we owe the development of algebra (al-jebr-wa’l-muqubala, which means the transposition and removal [of terms of an equation]). With the Renaissance the centre of scientific research shifted to Western Europe and from then on the boundaries of mathematical knowledge were rapidly extended, till to-day the subject is the common ground on which all the physical sciences meet. The student is referred to the article MATHEMATICS (Vol. 17, p. 878), by A. N. Whitehead, fellow and senior lecturer in mathematics, Trinity College, Cambridge, for a brilliant exposition of the foundations of the subject.
The professed mathematician will, of course, not need any set guide to his reading, but it may be well to point out one or two articles which he will find especially worthy of his attention.
[Sidenote: Leading Articles]
The article PROBABILITY, (Vol. 22, p. 376), by Professor Edgeworth, author of Mathematical Psychics, and numerous papers on the calculus of probabilities, gives, to the best of our belief, the only statement of the whole problem in the English language. That on ALGEBRAIC FORMS (Vol. 1, p. 620), by Major Macmahon, former president of the London Mathematical Society, includes a number of results not previously published. The article ELASTICITY (Vol. 9, p. 141), by A. E. H. Love, professor of natural philosophy in the University of Oxford, embodies the experience of a distinguished mathematician who has made this subject the object of his special study for years. Sir George Darwin (son of Charles Darwin) in the article TIDE (Vol. 26, p. 938) summed up the results of his life’s work. The new electrical theory of the properties of MATTER (Vol. 17, p. 891) is discussed by Sir J. J. Thomson, professor of physics, Cambridge, who has done more than anyone else to develop it. There are many other valuable articles, e.g., GEOMETRY, Axioms (Vol. 11, p. 730), and GEOMETRY, Non-Euclidean (Vol. 11, p. 724), by A. N. Whitehead; UNITS, DIMENSIONS OF (Vol. 27, p. 736), by Professor J. A. Fleming; ENERGY and ENERGETICS (Vol. 9, p. 398 and p. 390), by Sir Joseph Larmor; GROUPS, by Prof. Burnside, author of Theory of Groups of Finite Order. Articles which will be found highly useful to the engineer are MENSURATION (Vol. 18, p. 134); EARTH, FIGURE OF (Vol. 8, p. 801); GEODESY (Vol. 11, p. 607); STRENGTH OF MATERIALS (Vol. 25, p. 1007).
[Sidenote: Leading Contributors]
The mathematician will at once recognize the peculiar fitness of the contributors to deal with the subjects allotted to them, and this fitness is the more noticeable in the following list, arranged in alphabetical order, which names and briefly describes the distinguished mathematicians who have collaborated in the Britannica, and indicates the principal articles written by each.
H. F. Baker, Fellow and Lecturer of St. John’s College, Cambridge. Cayley Lecturer in Mathematics in the University. Author of Abel’s Theory and the Allied Theory, etc.:
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION; Function, Functions of Complex Variables.
Ludwig Boltzmann, formerly Professor of Theoretical Physics in the Universities of Munich, Vienna, and Leipzig. Author of Lectures on the Theory of Gas; Lectures on Maxwell’s Theory of Electricity and Light:
MODEL.
W. Burnside, Professor of Mathematics, Royal Naval College, Greenwich. Hon. Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Author of the Theory of Groups of Finite Order, etc.:
GROUPS, THEORY OF
Arthur Cayley, formerly Professor of Pure Mathematics in the University of Cambridge. See the biographical article (Vol. 5, p. 589):
CURVE (in part); DETERMINANT; EQUATION; NUMBERS, PARTITION OF; SURFACE (in part); GAUSS, K. F.; MONGE, G.
George Chrystal, Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Edinburgh University, Hon. Fellow and formerly Fellow and Lecturer, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge:
PERPETUAL MOTION; PASCAL (in part); RIEMANN, GEORG.
Col. A. R. Clarke, Royal Medal of Royal Society 1887; in charge of trigonometrical operations of the Ordnance Survey 1854–1881:
EARTH, FIGURE OF THE (in part); GEODESY (in part); MAP, Projections (in part).
Agnes Mary Clerke, Author of History of Astronomy in the 19th Century; The System of the Stars; Problems in Astrophysics; and many other astronomical books. See the biographical article (Vol. 6, p. 497):
ASTRONOMY, History: ZODIAC; BRAHE, TYCHO; COPERNICUS; FLAMSTEED; HALLEY; HUYGENS; KEPLER, etc.
Lt. Col. C. F. Close, head of the Geographical Section, British General Staff, formerly British Representative on the Nyasa-Tanganyika Boundary Commission. Author of Text-Book of Topographical Surveying, etc.:
MAPS, Projections (in part).
W. E. Dalby, Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the City and Guilds of London Institute, Central Technical College, South Kensington. Author of The Balancing of Engines, etc.:
MECHANICS, Applied (in part); and several engineering subjects.
Sir George H. Darwin, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in the University. President of the British Association, 1905. Author of The Tides and Kindred Phenomena in the Solar System, etc.:
TIDE.
F. Y. Edgeworth, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Oxford, etc. Author of Mathematical Psychics, and numerous papers on the Calculus of Probabilities in the Philosophical Magazine, etc.:
PROBABILITY.
E. B. Elliott, Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics, and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Formerly Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford. President of the London Mathematical Society, 1896–1898. Author of Algebra of Quantics, etc.:
CURVE, (in part); GEOMETRY, IV Analytical Geometry.
C. Everitt, Magdalen College, Oxford:
ALGEBRA, History: DENSITY; LIGHT, Introduction, History, etc.
J. A. Ewing, Director of (British) Naval Education. Hon. Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Formerly Professor of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics in the University of Cambridge. Author of the Strength of Materials, etc.:
STRENGTH OF MATERIALS, and several engineering subjects.
J. A. Fleming, Pender Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of London. Fellow of University College, London. Formerly Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and Lecturer on Applied Mechanics in the University. Author of Magnets and Electric Currents, etc.:
UNITS, PHYSICAL; and many articles on Electrical Science.
Rev. A. H. Frost:
MAGIC SQUARE.
W. Garnett, Educational Adviser to the London County Council; formerly Fellow and Lecturer of St. John’s College, Cambridge. Principal and Professor of Mathematics, Durham College of Science. Author of Elementary Dynamics, etc.:
ENERGY (in part); HYDROMETER; KELVIN, LORD.
J. W. L. Glaisher, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Formerly President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, Editor of Messenger of Mathematics and the Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics:
LOGARITHM; TABLE, MATHEMATICAL; LEGENDRE, A. M.; NAPIER, JOHN.
J. H. Grace, Lecturer in Mathematics at Peterhouse and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Fellow of Peterhouse:
GEOMETRY, Line Geometry.
Sir A. G. Greenhill, formerly Professor of Mathematics in the Ordnance College, Woolwich. Author of Differential and Integral Calculus with Applications; Hydrostatics; Notes on Dynamics, etc.:
BALLISTICS; GYROSCOPE AND GYROSTAT; HYDROMECHANICS.
Sir Thomas Little Heath, Assistant-Secretary to the Treasury, London. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Author of Apollonius of Perga; Treatise on Conic Sections; The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, etc.:
ANTHEMIUS; APOLLONIUS OF PERGA; ARCHIMEDES; HERO OF ALEXANDRIA; PAPPUS OF ALEXANDRIA; PORISM, etc.
F. R. Helmert, Professor of Geodesy in the University of Berlin:
EARTH, FIGURE OF THE (in part); GEODESY (in part).
O. M. F. Henrici, Professor of Mechanics and Mathematics in the Central Technical College of the City and Guilds of London Institute. Author of Vectors and Rotors; Congruent Figures, etc.:
CALCULATING MACHINES; GEOMETRY, I. Euclidean; II. Projective; III. Descriptive; PERSPECTIVE; PROJECTION.
E. W. Hobson, Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics, Christ’s College, Cambridge. Stokes Lecturer in Mathematics in the University:
FOURIER’S SERIES; SPHERICAL HARMONICS; TRIGONOMETRY.
A. E. Jolliffe, Fellow, Tutor and Mathematical Lecturer, Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Senior Mathematical Scholar, 1892:
CONTINUED FRACTIONS; MAXIMA AND MINIMA; SERIES.
H. Lamb, Professor of Mathematics, University of Manchester, formerly Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge; Member of Council of Royal Society, 1894–1896. Royal Medallist, 1902. President of London Mathematical Society 1902–1904. Author of HYDRODYNAMICS, etc.:
DYNAMICS; HARMONIC ANALYSIS; MECHANICS, I. Theoretical; VECTOR ANALYSIS; WAVE.
A. E. H. Love, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Oxford. Hon. Fellow of Queen’s College; formerly Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge; Secretary to the London Mathematical Society:
ELASTICITY; VARIATIONS, CALCULUS OF; FUNCTION, Functions of Real Variables; INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS.
W. H. Macaulay, Fellow and Tutor of King’s College, Cambridge:
MOTION, LAWS OF.
Major P. A. Macmahon, Deputy Warden of the Standards, Board of Trade. Joint General Secretary, British Association. Formerly Professor of Physics, Ordnance College. President of London Mathematical Society, 1894–1896:
ALGEBRAIC FORMS; COMBINATORIAL ANALYSIS; CAYLEY, ARTHUR.
G. B. Mathews, formerly Professor of Mathematics, University College of N. Wales, sometime Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge:
ALGEBRA, Special Kinds of Algebra; NUMBER.
J. Clerk Maxwell, former Professor of Experimental Physics in the University of Cambridge. See biographical article (Vol. 17, p. 929):
CAPILLARY ACTION (in part); DIAGRAM.
Simon Newcomb, former Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, etc. See the biographical article (Vol. 19, p. 474):
ASTRONOMY, Descriptive; and many other astronomical subjects.
J. H. Poynting, Professor of Physics and Dean of the Faculty of Science in the University of Birmingham. Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Joint-author of Text-Book of Physics:
ACOUSTICS; GRAVITATION (in part); SOUND.
F. Purser, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Dublin; Member of the Royal Irish Academy:
SURFACE (in part).
J. Purser, formerly Professor of Mathematics in Queen’s College, Belfast. Member of the Royal Irish Academy:
SURFACE (in part).
W. J. M. Rankine, former Professor of Civil Engineering at Glasgow University. See the biographical article (Vol. 22, p. 894):
MECHANICS, Applied (in part).
Hon. B. A. W. Russell, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Author of Foundations of Geometry; Principles of Mathematics, etc.:
GEOMETRY, VI. Non-Euclidean (in part).
W. F. Sheppard, Senior Examiner in the Board of Education; formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Senior Wrangler, 1884:
ALGEBRA, Principles of Ordinary Algebra; ARITHMETIC; DIFFERENCES, CALCULUS OF; INTERPOLATION; MENSURATION.
P. G. Tait, late professor of Natural Philosophy, Edinburgh University. Author of Elementary Treatise on Quaternions. Joint author with Lord Kelvin of Treatise on Natural Philosophy:
KNOT; QUATERNIONS (in part); HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM; MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK.
Rev. Charles Taylor, formerly Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge. Vice-Chancellor, Cambridge University, 1887–1888. Author of Geometrical Conics, etc.:
GEOMETRICAL CONTINUITY.
H. M. Taylor, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; formerly Tutor and Lecturer. Smith’s Prizeman, 1865. Editor of the Pitt Press Euclid:
NEWTON, SIR ISAAC.
Sir J. J. Thomson, Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. President of the British Association, 1909–1910. Author of A Treatise on the Motion of Vortex Rings; Application of Dynamics to Physics and Chemistry:
MATTER; and several articles on Electrical Science.
J. Walker, Christ Church, Oxford. Demonstrator in the Clarendon laboratory. Formerly Vice-President of the Physical Society. Author of The Analytical Theory of Light, etc.:
POLARIZATION OF LIGHT; REFRACTION, Double Refraction.
A. N. Whitehead, Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics, Trinity College, Cambridge. Author of A Treatise on Universal Algebra, etc.:
GEOMETRY VI. Non-Euclidean Geometry (in part); GEOMETRY VII. Axioms on Geometry; MATHEMATICS.
These are the men who are responsible for the mathematical sections of the Britannica. A fuller list of articles on mathematical subjects is given below.
Abel, Niels Henrik Abscissa Acceleration Agnesi, Maria Gaetana Aguillon, F. D. Algebra Algebraic Forms Aliquot Allen, or Alleyn T. Amicable Numbers Anderson, Alexander Angle Anthemius Apollonius of Perga Archimedes Argument Arithmetic Autolycus of Pitane Axis Babbage, Charles Baldi, Bernardino Ballistics Barlow, Peter Barrow, Isaac Bernoulli (family) Bessel Function Binomial Biquadratic Bisectrix Boole, George Borda, Jean Charles Boscovich, Roger J. Bouguer, Pierre Bowditch, Nathaniel Brachistochrone Briggs, Henry Buxton, Jedediah Calculating Machines Camus, Charles E. L. Cardan, Girolamo Cardioid Castel, Louis Bertrand Catenary Cauchy, A. L., baron Cayley, Arthur Charles, J. A. C. Chebichev, P. L. Circle Cissoid Clairault, A. C. Clifford, William K. Cocker, Edward Colburn, Z. Combinatorial Analysis Conchoid Cone Conic Section Conoid Continued Fractions Cotes, Roger Cremona, Luigi Cube Curve Cycloid Cylinder Demoivre, Abraham De Morgan, Augustus Determinant Diagonal Diagram Diameter Differences, Calculus of Differential Equation Dimension Diophantus of Alexandria Ditton, Humphry Dodecahedron Dynamics Earth, Figure of the Elasticity Ellipse Ellipsoid Emerson, William Energetics Energy Epicycloid Equation Euclid Euler, Leonhard Fermat, Pierre de Figurate Numbers Focus Folium Fourier, J. B. J. Fourier’s Series Frisi, Paolo Frustum Function Galloway, Thomas Galois, Evariste Gauss, Karl Friedrich Geodesy Geometrical Continuity Geometry Gnomon Graphical Methods Gravitation Greaves, John Gregory (family) Gregory, Olinthus G. Groups, Theory of Gunter, Edmund Gyroscope and Gyrostat Hachette, J. N. P. Hamilton, Sir W. R. Harmonic Harmonic Analysis Harriot, T. Hero of Alexandria Hodograph Hutton, Charles Huygens, Christiaan Hydrodynamics Hydromechanics Hydrostatics Hyperbola Icosahedron Inaudi, Jacques Infinite Infinitesimal Calculus Interpolation Inversion Involution Ivory, Sir James Jacobi, Karl G. J. Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st baron Kinematics Kinetics Kircher, Athanasius Knot Kovalevsky, Sophie Lagrange, Joseph L. Landen, John Laplace, P. S., de Lardner, Dionysius Legendre, Adrien Marie Lemniscate Leonardo of Pisa Leslie, Sir John Lever Lie, Marius Sophus Limaçon Line Lobachevskiy, N. I. Locus Logarithm Logocyclic Curve, Strophoid or Foliate MacCullagh, James Maclaurin, Colin Magic Square Map Mascheroni, Lorenzo Mathematics Matter Maupertuis, Pierre de Maxima and Minima Maxwell, J. Clerk Mechanics Mensuration Mersenne, Marin Monge, Gaspard Montucia, Jean-Étienne Motion, Laws of Murphy, Robert Napier, John Newton, Sir Isaac Nicomachus of Gerasa Number Numbers, Partition of Numeral Octahedron Ordinate Oughtred, William Oval Pantograph Pappus of Alexandria Parabola Peacock, George Peirce, Benjamin Pell, John Perpetual Motion Perspective Pfaff, J. F. Playfair, John Plücker, Julius Poinsot, Louis Poisson, Siméon Denis Polygon Polygonal Numbers Polyhedral Numbers Polyhedron Poncelet, Jean Victor Porism Price, Bartholomew Prism Probability Projection Quadratrix Quaternions Recorde, Robert Riccati, J. F., count Riemann, G. F. B. Roberval, G. P. de Robins, Benjamin Roulette Routh, Edward John Russell, John Scott Salmon, George Saunderson, N. Serenus of Antissa Series Serpentine Simpson, Thomas Simson, Robert Smith, H. J. S. Smith, Robert Snell, Willebrord Sphere Spherical Harmonics Spheroid Spiral Spottiswoode, W. Statics Steiner, Jakob Stevinus, Simon Stirling, James Stokes, Sir George G. Strength of Materials Sturm, J. C. F. Surface Sylvester, J. J. Table, Mathematical Tait, Peter G. Tartaglia, Niccolo Taylor, Brook Tetrahedron Theodosius of Tripolis Thompson, T. P. Tide Todhunter, Isaac Triangle Trigonometry Trisectrix Units, Dimensions of Units, Physical Variations, Calculus of Vector Analysis Vernier, Pierre Vieta (or Viète), F. Wallace, William Wallis, John Wave Witch of Agnesi Zero
LIII. ASTRONOMY
No greater homage has ever been paid to the progress of American science than when the planning and supervision of the astronomical section of the new Encyclopaedia Britannica was entrusted to the late Prof. Simon Newcomb, who was also the only American save Benjamin Franklin ever elected an associate of the French Institute. His death occurred some time before the Britannica was completed, but he had already finished the articles which he had undertaken personally to contribute, and read a great number of the other articles which had, at his suggestion, been assigned to eminent astronomers in various parts of the world. His famous hand-book, Popular Astronomy, has been translated into all the European languages, and into Japanese as well; but the unlimited resources in the way of collaboration which the editorial organization of the Britannica put at his disposal, enabled him to assemble in these volumes a complete body of astronomical knowledge which is the greatest of his educational achievements.
The making of a lens for a great telescope is the most difficult undertaking in all craftsmanship, and the mounting of the telescope itself a triumph of mechanical ingenuity. Yet the stars and planets have been guide-posts for the shepherd and the sailor throughout the ages, and have told the farmer when to sow and when to reap, and, even in our day, observations made by an amateur, through a common field-glass, have in more than one instance yielded results of serious value.
[Sidenote: A Few Facts]
Progress is from one point of view so slow that astronomers are now compiling data regarding fixed stars of which the motion cannot be deduced for centuries to come; yet some of the changes to be observed are so swift that solar prominences often rise at the rate of 350,000 miles an hour, and have been seen to rise to that height. The temperature of the sun’s envelope, 6000° C., greatly exceeds any that we can artificially create, and would convert into gas any substance we know; and for every unit of heat it sends to the earth, a hundred million other units, poured into space, are absolutely lost for any purposes of mechanical effect.
Astronomy deals with objects so minute that even a shooting star evolving, as it passes through our atmosphere, so much light that we can trace its course with the naked eye, may be no larger than a grain of sand; deals, too, with objects of so shadowy a nature that the white clouds in our sky are, in comparison, solid blocks; and deals, again, with distances and surfaces so vast that numerical description fails to convey any impression but one of confusion.
It is not easy to conceive, when we see a balloon in the air, the remainder that would exist if the bag, the car, and the cordage were all subtracted. There would be, until the gas mixed with the atmosphere, a sphere of gas. The stars, our sun included, seem to be masses of incandescent gas, possessing fairly definite boundaries, and not far from spherical in shape; the nebulae seem also to be masses of incandescent gas, irregular in form and having no clearly marked limits; even the nucleus of a comet is apparently not solid enough to be opaque; and as the four great planets also seem to be gaseous, it is probable that only the smaller bodies, like our earth, the moon, and Mars, are solid.
To the rule that we can handle none of the matter that originates beyond the limits of our atmosphere, the meteorites supply an exception. Seventy years ago, a mass of stone, cold and invisible, flying through the aether of space at the rate of some hundred thousand miles an hour, entered our atmosphere, became so hot, as the air’s friction checked its speed, that bits of its surface, fused to crust, flicked off and floated in the air, leaving a shining trail; then as its speed was reduced to some three hundred miles an hour, cooled until it was no hotter than a laundress likes her iron to be. At Mhow, in India, as it made a dent in the earth, it killed a man—the only man known to history who has died so uncanny a death. But near Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire, England, thirty years before, another meteorite had fallen only ten yards from a labourer; and only thirty years ago another arrived on a Yorkshire railway line, forty yards from a gang of platelayers. The largest meteoric mass known weighs about fifty tons, but most of them seem to have split in the course of their journey; and at Hessle, a hundred thousand fragments spread, like grapeshot from a giant gun, over an area of some thirty square miles. See METEORITE (Vol. 18, p. 262).
[Sidenote: Life on Mars]
Although the closest scrutiny has not discovered in any meteorite a shred of life, even the lowest, we obtain, from another source, and by a different method of observation, evidence—as yet inconclusive,—that not only life, but intelligent life exists beyond our planet. As in respect of other astronomical problems, the Britannica is singularly clear, impartial and authoritative in its treatment of this question. The article MARS (Vol. 17, p. 761) was written by Professor Newcomb, but Professor Percival Lowell contributes a summary of the recent investigations and deductions relating to Mars with which his name is associated. In 1877, Schiaparelli, adopting the old belief now abandoned by all astronomers, that oceans occupied the darker-coloured regions of Mars, observed dark streaks connecting these dark patches, and, believing them to be strips of water, described them by the Italian word “canale,” by which he meant channels, or natural bodies of water. An absurd misconception of his meaning gave wide currency to the idea that these strips were artificial canals, a manifest impossibility, as they are many miles in width. No canal, properly so called, could be so wide, and no reservoir could conceivably be so extensive. There is, in the existence of such patches, even if they were bodies of water, as no one now believes them to be, not the slightest indication of excavation. In 1894, Professor Lowell, an American astronomer of great authority, established, for the special purpose of observing Mars, the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, in Arizona, 7,250 feet above sea level, in singularly clear, dry air, equipped with a twenty-four-inch telescope. This observatory unquestionably commands greater penetration than any other, and Professor Newcomb says that the work there upon Mars “has been continued with such care and assiduity that its results must take precedence of all others.” Professor Lowell’s first announcement that he had detected evidences of the existence of extensive artificial canals, which would of course absolutely prove Mars to be inhabited by intelligent creatures, was received with derision by many critics who jumped to the conclusion that he meant artificial canals many miles in width. Fuller statements from Professor Lowell showed that he believed Schiaparelli’s wide strips to be not water, but areas of vegetation lying on each side of artificial irrigating canals of no extraordinary width, by a network of which water is brought to, and distributed throughout, the temperate and equatorial zones of Mars from the extreme North and South, as the polar snow caps melt; and that this irrigation gives the rainless area a seasonal fertility, just as the melting of Abyssinian snows fecundates the distant valley of the lower Nile. These strips, according to Professor Lowell and other observers, are at one season of a bluish-green colour suggesting prosperous vegetation, then fade to a paler shade or in some places to a tawny brown. The strips are thousands of miles in length, perfectly straight. No one claims to have seen the artificial canals, but if there are areas of vegetation, they must be due to irrigation performed by waterways. If continued observations confirm the existence of these strips, it will become certain that they are not telescopic illusions, but the results of engineering operations on a scale unknown to our planet. The readings indicated in this chapter will yield a survey of this special field, as of all other fields of current research in astronomy, and give new interest to current investigations.
A brief account of some of the principal astronomical articles is printed here in tabular form, and a fuller list, alphabetically arranged, follows this topical outline.
Topics for Reading Article and Contributor
Early Interest in the Sky.
Astral theology—the “assumption of ASTROLOGY (Vol. 2, p. 795), and a close link between the BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION movements going on in the heavens (Vol. 3, p. 114), by Dr. Morris and occurrences on the earth.” Jastrow, author of Religion of The history of astrology traced the Babylonians and Assyrians. to ancient Babylonia (about 3000 B.C.).
Story of the Constellations. A Map CONSTELLATION—with star-maps and of the Heavens. tables (Vol. 7, p. 11), by Charles Everitt, fellow Royal Astronomical Society. See also separate articles on the principal constellations and stars.
Development of Astronomy.
Scientific knowledge of the ancient ASTRONOMY, History (Vol. 2, p. Chinese, Egyptians and 808), by Agnes M. Clerke, author Babylonians. Revolutionary cycle of A Popular History of of the planets. Astronomy.
First conception of the earth as a PYTHAGORAS (Vol. 22, p. 699), by globe. “The harmony of the Dr. A. S. Pringle-Pattison, spheres.” Identification of author of Man’s Place in the morning and evening stars (about Cosmos, etc. 520 B.C.).
The Greeks measure the earth by ERATOSTHENES OF ALEXANDRIA (Vol. 9, astronomical means (about 200 p. 733), by Sir Thomas Little B.C.). Heath, author of Treatise on Conic Sections.
The first observatory. OBSERVATORY (Vol. 19, p. 954), by J. L. E. Dreyer, Director of Armagh Observatory.
The first systematic astronomer, PTOLEMY, Mathematics (Vol. 22, p. Ptolemy and his System (A.D. 620), by Prof. George J. Allman, 150). Queen’s, Galway; COPERNICUS (Vol. 7, p. 100), by Agnes M. Clerke.
Revival of heliocentric theory KEPLER, JOHANN (Vol. 15, p. 749), (A.D. 1506–1512). by Agnes M. Clerke.
Plan of Solar System realized. The GALILEO GALILEI (Vol. 11, p. 406), founder of descriptive astronomy by Agnes M. Clerke. (1564–1642).
Newton’s contributions to astronomy NEWTON, SIR ISAAC (Vol. 19, p. and astronomical physics 586), by Henry M. Taylor, Fellow (1585–1586). of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Continuation of Newton’s work. EULER, LEONHARD (Vol. 9, p. 887).
Nebular hypothesis of Laplace NEBULAR THEORY (Vol. 19, p. 333), (1796). by Sir Robert S. Ball, author of The Story of the Heavens, etc.
The New Astronomy.
Work of Wollaston, Fraunhofer, ASTROPHYSICS (Vol. 2, p. 819), by Kirchoff, and Rowland in spectrum Dr. Simon Newcomb, late director analysis. National Observatory, Washington.
Discoveries during recent eclipses. PHOTOGRAPHY, CELESTIAL (Vol. 21, p. Photographing the Heavens, 523), by Prof. H. H. Turner, Star-charts, etc. Oxford, author of Modern Astronomy, etc.
Measuring light and heat from the PHOTOMETRY, Celestial, or Stellar stars,—radio-micrometer. Photometry (Vol. 21, p. 530), by Dr. H. H. Turner, Oxford.
New method of photographing the sun SPECTROHELIOGRAPH, illustrated and the results of this mode of (Vol. 25, p. 618), by Dr. George study. E. Hale, inventor of the spectroheliograph.
Principles of Astronomy.
How the positions and motions of ASTRONOMY, _Spherical or the heavenly bodies are defined. Geometrical Astronomy_ (Vol. 2, System of co-ordinates. p. 801), by Dr. Simon Newcomb.
Distance of sun from earth the PARALLAX (Vol. 20, p. 760), by Dr. fundamental celestial Simon Newcomb. measurement.
Methods of determining distances of STAR, Distances and Parallaxes of stars. the Stars (Vol. 25, p. 789), by Arthur S. Eddington, Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Apparent motion of the heavenly ABERRATION, Aberration of Light bodies. (Vol. 1, p. 54), by Dr. S. Otto Eppenstein, Zeiss Optical Works, Jena, Germany.
Eclipses and their recurrence. List ECLIPSE (Vol. 8, p. 887), by Dr. of solar eclipses. Methods of Simon Newcomb. computing eclipses.
Diameter of earth as an EARTH, FIGURE OF THE (Vol. 8, p. astronomical unit. Determination 801), by Alexander R. Clarke, of diameter and figure of earth. Ordnance Survey, and Prof. F. R. Helmert, University of Berlin.
The Stars. The two Star-Streams. STAR (Vol. 25, p. 785), by Arthur Milky Way. Distribution of stars. S. Eddington, Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
True nebulae. Constitution. How NEBULA, illustrated (Vol. 19, p. they differ from star-clusters. 332), by Arthur S. Eddington.
Comets—origins and orbits. Physical COMET, illustrated (Vol. 6, p. constitution. List of periodic 759), by Dr. Simon Newcomb. comets.
Shooting Stars. History of meteoric METEOR (Vol. 18, p. 260), by W. F. showers. Denning, formerly president, Liverpool Astronomical Society.
Constitution of Shooting Stars. METEORITE (Vol. 18, p. 262), by Lazarus Fletcher, author of Introduction to the Study of Meteorites.
General description of the Solar SOLAR SYSTEM (Vol. 25, p. 357), by System. Dr. Simon Newcomb.
The photosphere, chromosphere and SUN, illustrated (Vol. 26, p. 85), corona, dimensions, temperature, by Dr. Ralph A. Sampson, and age of the sun, sun-spots. Astronomer Royal for Scotland.
The vast envelope which surrounds ZODIACAL LIGHT (Vol. 28, p. 998), the sun. by Dr. Simon Newcomb.
Are Northern Lights due to AURORA POLARIS, illustrated (Vol. emanations from the sun? 2, p. 934), by Dr. Charles Chree, president Physical Society of London.
Opaque Bodies, members of the Solar PLANET, illustrated (Vol. 21, p. System. Their relation to each 714), and PLANETS, MINOR (Vol. other. Their spectra, atmosphere, 21, p. 717), both by Dr. Simon temperatures. First planetoid Newcomb. discovered (Jan. 1, 1801). Groupings of the planetoids.
The smallest major planet. How it MERCURY (Vol. 18, p. 154), by Dr. presents the same face always to Simon Newcomb. the sun.
Venus: Its peculiar rotation and VENUS (Vol. 27, p. 1013), by Dr. cloudy atmosphere. Has Venus a Simon Newcomb. satellite?
The earth as a member of the solar EARTH (Vol. 8, p. 799). system.
Our nearest neighbour. Is it MARS, illustrated (Vol. 17, p. inhabited? Similarity of physical 761), by Dr. Simon Newcomb, with conditions to those of the earth. a summary by Professor Lowell, of the observations at Flagstaff.
The largest planet. Its belts, JUPITER, illustrated (Vol. 15, p. spots, markings and surface. Is 562), by W. F. Denning, formerly the great red spot a floating president, Liverpool Astronomical island? Society.
The ringed planet. Physical SATURN (Vol. 24, p. 232), by Dr. constitution of rings. Simon Newcomb.
Uranus: Its discovery, physical URANUS (Vol. 27, p. 788), by Dr. characteristics and satellites. Simon Newcomb.
The outermost known planet. NEPTUNE (Vol. 19, p. 385), by Dr. Dimensions. Resemblance to Simon Newcomb. Uranus.
Wonderful story of its discovery ADAMS, JOHN COUCH (Vol. 1, p. 177). (1845). LEVERRIER, U. J. J. (Vol. 16, p. 510), by Agnes M. Clerke, author of A Popular History of Astronomy.
The moon. Its aspects, phases and MOON, illustrated (Vol. 18, p. constitution. Its mountains and 802), by Dr. Simon Newcomb. atmosphere.
Development of Practical and Observational Astronomy.
Current mode of star nomenclature ASTRONOMY, History of Astronomy adopted (1603). First planetary (Vol. 2, p. 813), by Agnes M. transit observed by Gassendi Clerke, author of A Popular (1631). History of Astronomy.
Astronomical Instruments.
How co-ordinates used in ASTRONOMY, Practical Astronomy astronomical research are (Vol. 2 p. 807), by Dr. Simon determined. Newcomb.
Telescope: Discovery and history. TELESCOPE, illustrated (Vol. 26, p. Parts and mounting. Great 557), by Sir David Gill, formerly telescopes of the world. Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, and H. Dennis Taylor, inventor of the Cooke Photographic Lens.
The Transit Circle due to Tycho TRANSIT CIRCLE, illustrated (Vol. Brahe. Description and use. 27, p. 181), by J. L. E. Dreyer, Armagh Observatory, author of Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler, etc.
Measuring machines. Importance and MICROMETER, illustrated (Vol. 18, use in astronomy. p. 381), by Sir David Gill.
Measuring the sun’s diameter. HELIOMETER, illustrated (Vol. 13, p. 224), by Sir David Gill.
Old time instruments. “Nearly every ASTROLABE, illustrated (Vol. 2, p. one of the modern instruments 795), by Lady Huggins, author of used for the observatories of Life and Work of G. P. Mazzini. practical astronomy is part of the perfected astrolabe.”
Complete list of observatories OBSERVATORY (Vol. 19, p. 953), by throughout the world, date of J. L. E. Dreyer, director Armagh foundation, their equipment and Observatory, author of Planetary their specialized work. Systems from Thales to Kepler.
LIST OF ARTICLES IN THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA ON ASTRONOMY
Aberration Ablatitious Adams, John Couch Airy, Sir George B. Albategnius Albedo Albumazar (Abu-Maaschar) Algol Alidade Almacantar Altitude Amici, Giovanni B. Amplitude Andromeda Andronicus of Cyrrhus Anomaly Ansa Aphelion Apse and Apsides Aquarius Aquila Arcturus Argelander, F. W. A. Aries Aristarchus, of Samos Armilla Astrolabe Astrology Astronomy Astrophysics Auriga Azimuth Bailly, Jean S. Baily, Francis Bainbridge, John Bessel, Friedrich W. Bianchini, Francesco Binary System Biquintile Black Drop Bode, Johann Elert Boötes Bradley, James Brahe, Tycho Brisbane, Sir Thomas M. Brünnow, F. F. E. Calvisius, Sethus Campani-Alimenis, M. Cancer Canes Venatici Canis Major Capricornus Carrington, R. C. Cassini (family) Cassiopeia Celsius, Anders Centaurus Cepheus Cetus Chromosphere Clerke, Agnes Mary Colure Coma Berenices Comet Comet-Seeker Compression Conjunction Conon Constellation Copernicus, Nicolaus Corona Coronium Cosmic Culmination Cunitz, Maria Cycle Cygnus Cynosure Declination Dee, John Deferent Delambre, J. B. J. De la Rue, Warren Delisle, Joseph N. Delphinus Dial and Dialling Dick, Thomas Direct Motion Diurnal Motion Donati, Giovanni B. Draco Dupuis, Charles F. Earth Eccentric Eclipse Ecliptic Egress Ellipticity Elongation Encke, Johann Franz Ephemeris Epicycle Epoch Equation of the Centre Equation of Time Equator Equinox Eratosthenes of Alexandria Eridanus Eros Establishment of a Port Evection Facula Firmament Flamsteed, John Galileo, Galilei Gegenschein Gemini Geocentric Gould, B. A. Grant, Robert Halley, Edmund Hansen, Peter Andreas Hansteen, Christopher Heliacal Heliocentric Heliometer Hercules Herschel, Caroline L. Herschel, Sir F. W. Herschel, Sir J. F. W. Hevelius, Johann Hipparchus Horizon Horrocks, Jeremiah Hour Angle Huggins, Sir William Hydra Ideler, C. L. Immersion Inghirami, G. Ingress Invariable Plane Janssen, Pierre Jules C. Jupiter Kepler, Johann Lacaille, N. L. de Lalande, J. J. L. de Lamont, Johann von Latitude Lemonnier, Pierre C. Leo Leverrier, U. J. J. Libra Libration Lilly, William Lockyer, Sir J. Norman Longitude Longomontanus, C. S. Lunation Lyra Magellanic Clouds Mars Mayer, Johann Tobias Mercury Meridian Meteor Metonic Cycle Micrometer Mitcel, Ormsby M. Mitchell, Maria Möbius, August F. Moon Mouchez, A. E. B. Nadir Nebula Nebular Theory Neptune Newcomb, Simon Node Nostradamus Nutation Observatory Occultation Olbers, Heinrich W. M. Orbit Orion Parallax Penumbra Perigee Perihelion Perseus Phoebe Photography, Celestial Photometry, Celestial Piazzi, Giuseppe Pickering, E. C. Pisces Planet Planets, Minor Pleiades Pond, John Pons, Jean Louis Precession of the Equinoxes Prime Vertical Pritchard, Charles Proctor, Richard A. Ptolemy (Claudius) Quadrature Quetelet, L. A. Jacques Ramsden, Jesse Regiomontanus Reichenbach, G. von Repsold, Johann G. Retrograde Rheticus, or Rhaeticus Right Ascension Rittenhouse, David Robinson, J. T. R. Roemer, Ole Rosse, William Parsons, 3rd earl of Rümker, C. L. C. Sabine, Sir Edward Sacro Bosco, Johannes de (John Holywood) Sagitta Sagittarius Santini, Giovanni Satellite Saturn Schiaparelli, G. V. Schönfeld, Eduard Schröter, Johann H. Schumacher, H. C. Schwabe, Samuel H. Scorpio Secchi, Angelo Serpentarius or Ophiuchus Sextant Smyth, Charles Piazzi Solar System Solstice Somerville, Mary Sosigenes Spectroheliograph Star Stationary Stone, Edward Jones Struve, E. G. W. Sun Synodic Period Syzygy Taurus Telescope Terminator Three Bodies, Problem Tide Time, Measurement of Time, Standard Tisserand, F. F. Transit Circle, or Meridian Circle Trepidation Troughton, Edward Ulugh Beg Umbra Uranus Ursa Major Ursa Minor Venus Vertical Virgo Vulpecula et Anser Walker, Sears Cook Walther, Bernhard Zach, Baron von Zenith Zodiac Zodiacal Light Zöllner, J. K. F.
LIV. PHYSICS
[Sidenote: Early Ideas of the World]
More than two thousand years ago the poet Lucretius, reviewing the physical knowledge and theories of the Greeks, described, as the Britannica tells us, how “the world was formed by the conjunctions of streams of atoms, which condensed into the earth, with its attendant water, air, and aether, to form a self-contained whole,” and went on to tell how in the changes of infinite time all possible forms of life appeared, but only those fittest to survive persisted. Here we have an unconscious anticipation of the nebular hypothesis and the theory of natural selection, two of the most tremendous of modern speculations. Four hundred years earlier Democritus, the greatest of the Greek natural philosophers, had said: “According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, and according to convention there is colour. In truth there are atoms and a void.” Democritus came near announcing the doctrines of the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy, yet the conventions which he assailed persisted for generations: colour, taste and other qualities of a substance being regarded as of its essence and as much realities as the substance itself. The theories of the Greeks in fact held the field for centuries, until, during the Renaissance, men’s minds attacked the secrets of nature in a more modern spirit. Yet, long as has been its history, physical science, as we know it to-day, is but a few years old, the result of the feverish activity which has been the obsession of the generation now passing (Vol. 24, p. 396).
There are many entertaining touches in the historical account of the development of the physical sciences with which this section of the Britannica is enriched, for every branch of the subject has been treated from the historical point of view. The articles, too, have been written by masters who can describe clearly because they see clearly, and no reader, desiring a sound knowledge of the general principles on which science rests, and of the conclusions to which the latest investigations have directed scientific thought, will go away empty handed.
The section of the Physical Sciences in the Britannica covers, of course, an enormous field which for general purposes may be conveniently divided into:—
(i) Matter and Motion
(ii) Sound
(iii) Light
(iv) Heat
(v) Electricity and Magnetism
As a preliminary to any one of these and to the whole subject the reader will be well advised to read the article SCIENCE (Vol. 24, p. 396), by W. C. D. Whetham of Trinity College, Cambridge, author of Recent Development of Physical Science; those on UNITS, PHYSICAL (Vol. 27, p. 738), and UNITS, DIMENSIONS OF (Vol. 27, p. 736), are also of fundamental importance; and those on SPACE AND TIME (Vol. 25, p. 525), and TIME, MEASUREMENT OF (Vol. 26, p. 983), may profitably be consulted.
(I) Matter and Motion
[Sidenote: Matter]
Since all physical phenomena are manifestations, in one form or other, of matter in motion, this first division of the subject is introductory to all the rest, and should preferably be studied first. The latest theories in connection with the properties of MATTER (Vol. 17, p. 891) are discussed by Sir J. J. Thomson, professor of experimental physics, Cambridge University, who has led the way in the investigation of the electrical theory of matter. The article is directed to the establishment of the electronic theory, and in view of the vast amount of original work which the author has carried out in this field, his treatment in the Britannica should be welcome to all students of physical science. Supplementing this are the following: ELEMENT, by Wilhelm Ostwald (Nobel Prizeman in Chemistry, 1909), especially the concluding remarks (Vol. 9, p. 253); ATOM (Vol. 2, p. 870); ELECTRICITY, Electronic Theory (Vol. 9, p. 192). Early hypotheses are described under SCIENCE (Vol. 24, p. 397); MOLECULES (Vol. 18, p. 654); ALCHEMY (Vol. 1, p. 521); and modern conceptions are discussed under LIQUID GASES, Cohesion (Vol. 16, p. 756); and SPECTROSCOPY (Vol. 25, p. 625). Reference should also be made to the articles DENSITY (Vol. 8, p. 46); DIFFUSION (Vol. 8, p. 255); and especially GRAVITATION (Vol. 12, p. 384), by Professor Poynting of the University of Birmingham, and AETHER (Vol. 1, p. 292), by Sir Joseph Larmor, secretary of the Royal Society.
[Sidenote: Motion]
The principal articles dealing with motion are: MOTION, LAWS OF (Vol. 18, p. 906), which deals mainly with Newton’s Laws; and ENERGY (Vol. 9, p. 398), and ENERGETICS (Vol. 9, p. 390), both by Sir Joseph Larmor. Of as great importance from the physical point of view are WAVE (Vol. 28, p. 424), the part of the article MECHANICS dealing with simple harmonic motion (Vol. 17, p. 975) and elliptic harmonic motion (p. 978), and HARMONIC ANALYSIS (Vol. 12, p. 956), all by Professor Lamb of the University of Manchester. Other articles which should be consulted are CAPILLARY ACTION (Vol. 5, p. 256), and PERPETUAL MOTION (Vol. 21, p. 180).
(II) Sound
The main article SOUND (Vol. 25, p. 437) is by Prof. J. H. Poynting of the University of Birmingham, and very completely covers the subject; the reader will, however, wish to refer to several other articles for supplementary information. Thus in the article HEARING (Vol. 13, p. 124), the range of audibility is discussed (see also TARTINI, Vol. 26, p. 436, for an account of Tartini’s tones), while with regard to quality of tone the reader will find suggestive matter under VIOLIN (Vol. 28, p. 104). An account of experiments in balloons on the propagation of sound, will be found (Vol. 1, p. 267) under AERONAUTICS. Reference should also be made to the articles WAVE (Vol. 28, p. 425), ELASTICITY, Vibrations and Waves (Vol. 9, p. 158), and HARMONIC ANALYSIS (Vol. 12, p. 956) for a discussion of the form of sound waves. For applications of the principles of sound production, see also the articles PHONOGRAPH (Vol. 21, p. 467), GRAMOPHONE (Vol. 12, p. 333), and especially STRINGED INSTRUMENTS (Vol. 25, p. 1038), WIND INSTRUMENTS (Vol. 28, p. 709), and other articles on musical instruments (see the chapter on Music in this Guide). For accounts of the researches of KUNDT (Vol. 15, p. 946), LAGRANGE (Vol. 16, p. 75) and STOKES (Vol. 25, p. 951), see those articles.
(III) Light
The main article LIGHT (Vol. 16, p. 608) is in four parts. The Introductory and Historical sections are by C. Everitt; that on the Nature of Light by Professor Lorentz of the University of Leiden; that on its Velocity by the late Simon Newcomb, the eminent American astronomer. The different phenomena connected with the subject may conveniently be grouped and studied as follows:—
(a) COLOUR (Vol. 6, p. 728); Intensity, see PHOTOMETRY (Vol. 21, p. 525), a brilliant article by Prof. H. H. Turner, of Oxford University; ILLUMINATION (Vol. 14, p. 320).
(b) REFLECTION OF LIGHT (Vol. 23, p. 2); ABSORPTION (Vol. 1, p. 76); REFRACTION (Vol. 23, p. 25); DISPERSION (Vol. 8, p. 315); INTERFERENCE (Vol. 14, p. 685); POLARIZATION OF LIGHT (Vol. 21, p. 932).
(c) SHADOW (Vol. 24, p. 738); DIFFRACTION (Vol. 8, p. 238); CALORESCENCE (Vol. 5, p. 60); FLUORESCENCE (Vol. 10, p. 375); PHOSPHORESCENCE (Vol. 21, p. 476).
(d) MIRROR (Vol. 18, p. 575); LENS (Vol. 16, p. 421); CAUSTIC (Vol. 5, p. 558); ABERRATION (Vol. 1, p. 54).
(e) CORONA (Vol. 7, p. 184); HALO (Vol. 12, p. 864); MIRAGE (Vol. 18, p. 573); RAINBOW (Vol. 22, p. 861); SKY (Vol. 25, p. 202); TWILIGHT (Vol. 26, p. 492)—see also DUST (Vol. 8, p. 713).
(f) TELESCOPE (Vol. 26, p. 557); MICROSCOPE (Vol. 18, p. 392); OBJECTIVE (Vol. 19, p. 948); CAMERA LUCIDA (Vol. 5, p. 104); CAMERA OBSCURA (Vol. 5, p. 104); BINOCULAR INSTRUMENT (Vol. 3, p. 949); STEREOSCOPE (Vol. 25, p. 895).
(g) VISION (Vol. 28, p. 130).
Far reaching developments are described in PHOTOGRAPHY (Vol. 21, p. 485) and SPECTROSCOPY (Vol. 25, p. 619). In the former article Sir W. de W. Abney describes in great detail photographic Processes; Major-General Waterhouse, Apparatus and Lenses, while A. H. Hinton discusses the Pictorial aspect of the subject. There are also valuable articles on CELESTIAL PHOTOGRAPHY (Vol. 21, p. 523), by Professor Turner, and on the SPECTROHELIOGRAPH (Vol. 25, p. 618), by the inventor, G. E. Hale, director of the Solar Observatory of the Carnegie Institution at Mount Wilson, Cal. The relation between magnetism and light is discussed in an article MAGNETO-OPTICS (Vol. 17, p. 388), by Sir J. J. Thomson.
(IV) Heat
The treatment of this subject in the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been generally organized by Prof. H. L. Callendar, of the Royal College of Science, London, who was designated by Lord Kelvin as his successor in this department of the work. In pursuing the subject the following order may conveniently be followed:
(a) HEAT (Vol. 13, p. 135), THERMOMETRY (Vol. 26, p. 821), CALORIMETRY (Vol. 5, p. 60), and THERMODYNAMICS (Vol. 26, p. 808), all by Professor Callendar; COLD (Vol. 6, p. 663).
(b) CONDUCTION OF HEAT (Vol. 6, p. 890); RADIATION, THEORY OF (Vol. 22, p. 785); RADIOMETER (Vol. 22, p. 806).
(c) FUSION (Vol. 11, p. 369); VAPORIZATION (Vol. 27, p. 897); CONDENSATION OF GASES (Vol. 6, p. 844); LIQUID GASES (Vol. 16, p. 744); THERMOELECTRICITY (Vol. 26, p. 814).
(V) Electricity and Magnetism
[Sidenote: Historical]
We are so accustomed to think of electricity as the peculiar possession of our own age (the first crude attempts at an electric light were only two score years ago) that we are apt to forget that the first experiments in the science were made at least 2500 years ago. The first effort to place it on a true experimental and inductive basis dates back more than three centuries to the publication of the researches of WILLIAM GILBERT (see Vol. 12, p. 9), the most distinguished man of science of his time, whom Queen Elizabeth appointed her private physician at the “usual” salary of £100. A hundred years later, VOLTA (Vol. 28, p. 198), who might be called the patron saint of electricity, produced the first electric current with the pile which bears his name. Meanwhile BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Vol. 11, p. 30) had been experimenting with his famous kite, and CAVENDISH (Vol. 5, p. 580) and COULOMB (Vol. 7, p. 508) had been paving the way for the startling developments which resulted from Volta’s invention. In the 19th century FARADAY (Vol. 10, p. 173), AMPÈRE (Vol. 1, p. 878), OHM (Vol. 20, p. 34), LORD KELVIN (Vol. 15, p. 721), JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (Vol. 17, p. 929) and other brilliant investigators in rapid succession developed the field, until the science and application of electricity have attained a position absolutely dominating our daily life.
[Sidenote: Analysis of the Subject]
The section of the Britannica treating this great subject is therefore one of the most important in the whole work, and it was in the fullest recognition of the fact that the editor asked Prof. J. A. Fleming, of the University of London, famous for his original work in both the mathematical and the experimental branches of the science, to organize the sections for the new edition. The ground is generally covered in the four articles, on electricity, electrostatics, electrokinetics, and electromagnetism, all contributed by Prof. Fleming himself. The article ELECTRICITY (Vol. 9, p. 179) is the key article to the subject, and should be read first. The two great branches of electrical theory then follow: (a) ELECTROSTATICS (Vol. 9, p. 240), in connection with which the article ELECTRICAL MACHINE (Vol. 9, p. 176) should also be studied, with reference to ELECTROSCOPE (Vol. 9, p. 239) and ELECTROPHORUS (Vol. 9, p. 237). (b) ELECTROKINETICS (Vol. 9, p. 210) and, supplementing it, CONDUCTION, ELECTRIC (Vol. 6, p. 855). The latter is divided into three parts: (i.) Conduction in Solids, by Prof. Fleming; (ii.) Conduction in Liquids by W. C. D. Whetham; (iii.) Conduction in Gases, by Sir J. J. Thomson. In connection with (ii.) should be read ELECTROLYSIS (Vol. 9, p. 217), by W. C. D. Whetham, and with (iii.) RÖNTGEN RAYS (Vol. 23, p. 694) and VACUUM TUBE (Vol. 27, p. 834), both by Sir J. J. Thomson, whose article ELECTRIC WAVES (Vol. 9, p. 203) is of fundamental importance. The general principles of electrical engineering are set out in the article ELECTRIC SUPPLY (Vol. 9, p. 193) with reference to DYNAMO (Vol. 8, p. 764); MOTORS, ELECTRIC (Vol. 18, p. 910); TRANSFORMERS (Vol. 27, p. 173); ACCUMULATOR (Vol. 1, p. 126); POWER TRANSMISSION, Electric (Vol. 22, p. 233); TRACTION, Electric Traction (Vol. 27, p. 120); LIGHTING, Electric (Vol. 16, p. 659); see also ELECTROCHEMISTRY (Vol. 9, p. 208) and ELECTROMETALLURGY (Vol. 9, p. 232); TELEGRAPH (Vol. 26, p. 510); TELEPHONE (Vol. 26, p. 547).
A bridge to MAGNETISM (Vol. 17, p. 321), an article by Shelford Bidwell, former president of the Physical Society, is the article ELECTROMAGNETISM (Vol. 9, p. 226), by Prof. Fleming. This article leads also to the study of manifestations in nature of electricity and magnetism: see the articles ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY (Vol. 2, p. 860); AURORA POLARIS (Vol. 2, p. 927); EARTH CURRENTS (Vol. 8, p. 813); and MAGNETISM, TERRESTRIAL (Vol. 17, p. 353); and to the applications of its principles in the COMPASS (Vol. 6, p. 804).
An alphabetical list of the articles in the Britannica on the subjects treated in this chapter is given below. The biographies of distinguished physicists, included in the list, are valuable as containing accounts of their contributions to science, and are full of human interest.
ARTICLES ON THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES IN THE BRITANNICA, INCLUDING THOSE ON FAMOUS PHYSICISTS
Aberration Absorption of Light Accumulator Achromatism Acoustics Acre Actinometer Adhesion Aepinus, F. U. T. Aether, or Ether Aggregation Agonic Lines Aldini, Giovanni Alhazen Amontons, Guillaume Ampère, A. M. Amperemeter or Ammeter Anderson, John Angström, A. J. and K. J. Aperture Arago, D. F. J. Armature Arnaldus de Villa Nova Arrhenius, S. A. As Atmospheric Electricity Atwood, George Auncel Avogadro, Amedeo Avoirdupois Ayrton, W. E. Bache, Alexander D. Baker, Henry Balance Barleycorn Barometer Barometric Light Barrel Battery Beccaria, G. B. Becquerel (family) Bell, A. Graham Binocular Instrument Biot, Jean Baptiste Boyle, Robert Brewster, Sir David Bushel Cagniard de la Tour, C. Calibration Calorescence Calorimetry Camera Lucida Camera Obscura Canton, John Capillary Action Carat Carnot, Sadi N. L. Carucate Caustic Cavallo, Tiberius Cinematograph Claudet, A. F. J. Clausius, Rudolf J. E. Cold Colour Compass Condensation of Gases Conduction, Electric Conduction of Heat Cornu, Marie Alfred Coulomb, C. A. Curie, Pierre Cyclometer Daguerre, L. J. M. Dallmeyer, John Henry De la Rive, A. A. Della Porta, G. Battista Demijohn Density Diamagnetism Dielectric Diffraction of Light Diffusion Dimension Dispersion Dolland, John Duhamel, J. B. Dynamo Earth Currents Edison, T. A. Electrical or Electrostatic Machine Electricity Electricity Supply Electric Waves Electrochemistry Electrokinetics Electrolysis Electromagnetism Electrometallurgy Electrometer Electron Electrophorus Electroplating Electroscope Electrostatics Electrotyping Energetics Energy Erman, Paul Fahrenheit, G. D. Fathom Fizeau, A. H. L. Fluorescence Forbes, James David Forman, Simon Foucault, J. B. L. Fraunhofer, J. von Fresnel, Augustin J. Furlong Fusion Fuze, or Fuse Gallon Galvanometer Geissler, Heinrich Gibbs, J. W. Gilbert, or Gylberde, W. Glaisher, James Graduation Gramophone Gravitation Gray, Elisha Grove, Sir William R. Guericke, Otto von Harris, Sir W. S. Hearing Heat Heliostat Helmholtz, H. L. F. von Henry, Joseph Hertz, Heinrich R. Hogshead Hooke, Robert Hopkinson, John Hour-glass Hughes, D. E. Hydrometer Hypsometer Hysteresis Illumination Inch Inclinometer Induction Coil Interference of Light Jablochkov, Paul Joule, J. P. Kaleidoscope Kater, Henry Kelvin, 1st baron Kirchhoff, G. R. König, K. R. Kundt, A. A. E. E. Lambert, J. H. Langley, S. P. Lantern Lens Leyden Jar, or Condenser Lichtenberg, G. C. Light Lighting Lightning Conductor Liquid Gases Lodge, Sir Oliver J. Magnetism Magnetism, Terrestrial Magnetograph Magnetometer Magneto-Optics Malus, E. L. Manometer Mariotte, Edme Marum, Martin van Matter Matteucci, Carlo Maxwell, J. Clerk Mayer, Julius R. Melloni, Macedonio Meter, Electric Metric System Michell, John Microscope Mirror Model Molecule Morgen Morse, S. F. B. Motion, Laws of Motors, Electric Musschenbroek, P. van Neckam, A. Nicholson, W. Nicol, William Niepce, J. Nicéphore Nobili, Leopoldo Nollet, Jean Antoine Objective, or Object Glass Ohm, Georg Simon Ohmmeter Olmsted, Denison Optics Oscillograph Ounce Papin, Denis Peck Peltier, J. C. A. Permeability, Magnetic Permeameter Perpetual Motion Phonograph Phosphorescence Photography Photometry Pint Plateau, J. A. F. Pneumatics Poggendorff, J. C. Polarity Polarization of Light Pood Potentiometer Pound Power Transmission Prévost, Pierre Pyrometer Radiation, Theory of Radiometer Rayleigh, Lord Reflection of Light Refraction Rod Röntgen Rays Röntgen, W. K. Rowland, Henry A. Rumford, Count Saussure, H. B. de Science Shadow Siemens, E. Werner von Sky Sound Space and Time Spectacles Spectroscopy Speculum Spherometer Standard Stereoscope Stewart, Balfour Sun or Photo Copying Swan, Sir Joseph W. Tait, Peter G. Talbot, W. H. Fox Talent Tartini, G. Telegraph Telephone Thermodynamics Thermoelectricity Thermometry Thomson, James Torricelli, E. Transformers Trumpet, Speaking and Hearing Tyndall, John Units, Dimensions of Units, Physical Vacuum Tube Vaporization Vision Volta, Alessandro Voltmeter Wattmeter Wave Weber, W. E. Weighing Machines Weights and Measures Wheatstone’s Bridge Wheatstone, Sir Chas. Wiedemann, G. H. Young, Thomas