the latter average being based on 250 cases. In approximately the same period, New York University's average dropped from 4 to 2.5. The Harvard average for the '70's was 1.99.

IN CITY AND COUNTRY.

Commenting on the statistical showing made by the reports of the three colleges, Professor Thorndike remarks:

Its

"These figures are from a sufficient number of cases to be substantially reliable. For instance, there is not one chance in a thousand that the Harvard average is 10 per cent. too low. The existence and approximate amount of the decrease in the size of family is thus certain. substantial identity in Middlebury, a country college in Vermont with a local attendance; in New York University, a city college, and in Wesleyan University, a strongly sectarian college with an attendance drawn from the Northeastern States, makes it probable that it has prevailed throughout the college population of the north Atlantic States. It must depend upon some fundamental cause.

66

City life and advanced age at marriage are out of question. The former cause would work to a far greater extent upon New York University or Harvard graduates than upon Middlebury graduates, all of whom come from and most of whom go back to life in small towns. Yet in the statistics there is little difference. An increase in the age at marriage cannot have been the cause, for the simple reason that such increase, as I have elsewhere shown, amounts only to a very few months. An increase in the age at marriage of the wives of our group of men would be a more efficient cause. I know of no available statistics to decide the question, but it would seem extremely unlikely that the age of wives should have increased much when the age of husbands has increased so little.

"The most plausible explanation attributes the change to the custom of conscious restriction of offspring. Greater prudence, higher ideals of education for children, more interest

in the health of women, interests of women in affairs outside the home, the increased knowledge of certain fields of physiology and medicine, a decline in the religious sense of the impiety of interference with things in general, the longing for freedom from household cares,any or all of these may be assigned as the motive for the restriction. The only other explanation which to the present writer seems adequate assigns the decreased productivity of college men to real physiological infertility of the social and perhaps of the racial group to which college men and their wives belong."

RACE SENESCENCE.

The suggestion that the decrease may be the result of race infertility is supported by an editorial article in the same magazine, in which it is maintained that race sterility is quite possible.

"It seems to conflict with the principle of natural selection, as fertility might be supposed to have a high selective value. Natural selection, however, can only select,-it cannot produce variations. If size of head is more variable than size of pelvis, and is equally important for survival, the increasing difficulties of childbearing are not inexplicable on the theory of natural selection. If sterility increases, we must assume that the conditions of the environment have altered too rapidly for variation and natural selection to keep pace with them. Indeed, the existing conditions may be due in part to our interference with natural selection. The decreasing death rate on which we pride ourselves may in part be responsible for the decreasing birth rate. When children who cannot be born naturally or cannot be nursed survive, we may be producing a sterile race. No statistics in regard to miscarriages are at hand, but there is good reason to believe that they increase as the number of children decreases.

"There is no positive proof of race senescence in man. On the contrary, we know that the Italians and the French Canadians have large families, though there is as much reason for them to suffer from racial exhaustion as the inhabitants of France, and the Chinese seem to be in no danger of extermination. But we know that animals bred for special traits tend to become infertile, and selection for our civilization may have the same result. Physicists tell us that the earth may be uninhabitable in twenty million. years; it may be uninhabited by men in twenty centuries."

CAN I AFFORD AN AUTOMOBILE?

THE question of what a good motor costs, and

the yearly expense of maintenance, is discussed in the June World's Work by Mr. Henry Norman. He gives a careful calculation of the expense of getting and running two typical classes of automobiles. It is to be remembered, however, that no particular calculation would hold true for everybody. The same machine will cost one man twice as much as it will cost his neighbor, so far as maintenance is concerned. "One owner will keep no account, allow his driver to take the machine to the repair shop as often as he likes, make no attempt to understand it himself and bring his own more educated in

telligence to bear upon its problems; let his accumulators be injured by running down and his bearings worn by his oil-cup not being kept full, pay 30 cents a gallon for his gasoline and $1.75 a gallon for his lubricating oil, leave cuts unrepaired in his tires, and permit his machine to be left all night with the mud on. The other will study his machine till he knows what it is doing and what should not be done to it, keep every want of his machine regularly supplied, find a keen pleasure in doing all trifling repairs at home, insist that its body and wheels should be as scrupulously washed and leathered as the most costly brougham, pay 20 cents a gallon for his gasoline and $1.25 for his oil, and generally act toward his property like a careful and sensible man."

With this understanding, that no figures can be true for all automobile-owners, Mr. Norman proceeds to inquire what two classes of machines will cost, the first, one such as a man who has kept a horse, carriage, and groom might think of adopting instead; the other, such as a man who has never kept a horse might consider within his means.

The machine for the first of the two classes will cost from $1,500 to $2,000. This will purchase a ten-horse-power, two-cylinder, four-speed, full-leather-upholstered, smart-looking machine, capable of a maximum speed of from twentyfive to thirty miles an hour on the level, and an average all day of from sixteen to eighteen miles. The depreciation account will be about 20 per cent. per annum if the automobile is carefully kept. Tires will cost, perhaps, $100 a year; gas

(Weighs less than 500 pounds and costs from $650 to $750. Gasoline is the fuel producing the steam.)

in leather, capable of climbing any reasonable hill on its low speed, and of running from twenty to twenty-five miles an hour on its higher speed on the level. Such an automobile will cost from $650 to $1,000.

An automobile of this kind, if taken care of, should sell for half its cost at the end of two years. The expenses of running it are tabulated as follows, assuming that the owner manages the machine without the services of a driver:

AUTOMOBILE FOR TWO, WITHOUT DRIVER.

TYPE OF THE MORE COSTLY GASOLINE CARS, SEATING FOUR.

oline, at an average of twenty miles to a gallon, will cost for, say, four thousand miles a year, $44. Other supplies, such as lubricating oil, kerosene for the side-lamps, and calcium carbide for the headlight, are placed at $75. Repairs and replacements ought not to exceed $50. Adding to the sum of these figures the cost of the driver and his special clothing, Mr. Norman figures out

and I feel confident that, given intelligent and careful management, these figures may be regarded as substantially accurate."

IN

WOMAN AND MUSIC.

N the Gentleman's Magazine for May there is a very interesting article contributed by Mr. J. Cuthbert Haddon, entitled "Woman and Music." Mr. Haddon regrets that as yet their sex has not produced a truly great composer; but this he considers largely due to the fact that women have not been and are even yet not allowed to devote the time to the study of music that is indispensable. He says:

"As has been truly remarked, it needs but a glance at the lives of the great composers to show us that the high gift of original creation has ever had to be fostered by active care and congenial surroundings-that, moreover, it exacts for its full fruition a degree of detachment from the common concerns of life which would be sure to overwhelm the solicitous soul of many

a woman with the obloquy it would bring upon her. And it is just here that woman, either of her own choice or of necessity, has failed to secure the advantages and conditions necessary to her development as an artist."

Mr. Haddon gives as an example the case of Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny, who in her early years offered the greater musical promise. But, because she was a girl, what happened?

"Precisely what has always happened, and what, under similar circumstances, would proba bly happen still, in spite of the boasted emancipation of the sex; the training of each gradually diverged, stopped short, in fact, with the girl, while the boy was encouraged and assisted by every available means. The girl was simply taught, as girls are taught now, to dally with the keys of an instrument; the boy was prepared for an exacting art in an exacting manner.

are no instruments better suited for handling by a woman than the violin and the violincello, and that this is becoming more and more appreciated is shown by the fact that at the Guildhall School of Music, not long ago, there were two thousand lady students of the violin, while at the Royal College of Music, last session, there was not a single male student of the violincello, all the students being ladies. In a great many cases, lady violinists in orchestras are declared to be, in many respects, more satisfactory than men. Mr. Haddon rejoices in the fact that "we have got the length of recognizing that the piano is not the only instrument suitable for women; the full result of this recognition must be only a question of time.”

In conclusion, Mr. Haddon hopefully declares that, although as yet there have been no great women composers, it does not follow that there I will never be.

A NEW SOURCE OF HEAT: RADIUM.

SINCE the discovery of radium, in 1898, the

chemists and physicists have been kept busy trying to account for its wonderful properties, among which have been noted its power of giving out light perpetually without any exciting cause, its emission of rays that penetrate solids like the X-ray, its faculty of acting on sensitized plates, and of causing air to conduct electricity. As if these were not sufficient distinctions for this remarkable substance, it has been found, within the past few months, that radium emits heat. This discovery was announced by MM. Curie and Laborde at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences held in March. Some of the difficulties attending the experiments are set forth by Dr. Henry Carrington Bolton in the Popular Science Monthly for May.

It is safe to say that very few people who have read about radium in the scientific journals and elsewhere have any conception of the rarity of the material. Dr. Bolton thinks that a teaspoon would probably hold all the pure radium as yet prepared; its price would amount to thousands of dollars. This fact has, of course, been a serious bar to experiments. "Tons of minerals," says Dr. Bolton, "have been submitted to laborious processes in the chemical laboratory to obtain a few grams of the precious material; and at the end of the task the conscientious scientist can only claim that the product is such and such a salt, containing a small, unknown percentage of radium." When we are told that a very small sample of the material is valued at twenty-five dollars, we can readily understand that experimentation with radium has been a

costly, as well as a laborious, undertaking. The wonder is that so much has been learned about the properties of this new body in so short a time.

As explained by Dr. Bolton, the discovery by Curie and Laborde that radium emits heat was the result of two experiments. "By a thermo

electric method they ascertained that a specimen of barium chloride containing one-sixth of its weight of radium chloride indicated a temperature 1.5° C. (2.7° F.) higher than a sample of pure barium chloride; the temperature was de

power of emitting heat? Will not scientists be compelled to revise some of the theories of phys ics that they regard at present as cardinal? And what are the conditions in the earth beneath our feet, when inert matter manifests energy to such an amazing extent without a known cause? The future opened to students and to philosophers is fraught with mysteries the solution of which will be eagerly awaited by the rest of the world."

THE FRENCH CHILD CRIMINAL.

that excited in a wire of known resistance by an electric current of known intensity. In the second experiment, they employed a Bunsen calorimeter. The experimenters found that one gram of active barium chloride emits about fourteen small calories per hour. The specimen The specimen contained only about one-sixth its weight of radium chloride, but on testing 0.08 gram of purer material they obtained identical results, from which it can be calculated that one gram of radium would emit 100 small calories per hour, on one atom-gram (225 grams) would emit, each hour, 22,500 calories, an amount comparable with the heat disengaged by the combustion in oxygen of one atom-gram of hydrogen.

HEAT WITHOUT COMBUSTION.

"The continuous emission of such a large quantity of heat cannot be explained by any chemical action, and must be due to some modification of the atom itself; if so, such a change must be very slow. As a matter of fact, Demarçay observed no change in the spectrum of radium examined at intervals of five months.

"An English writer, commenting on the figures given by M. Curie, says that a radium salt in a pure state would melt more than its own weight of ice every hour; and half a pound of radium salt would evolve in one hour an amount of heat equal to that produced by burning onethird of a cubic foot of hydrogen gas. And the extraordinary part of this is that the evolution of heat goes on without combustion, without chemical change of any kind, without alteration of its molecular structure, and continuously, leaving the salt, at the end of months of activity, just as potent as in the beginning. Yet this state of things must have a cause, for it must not be imagined that perpetual motion has been at last attained."

Dr. Bolton closes his interesting paper with these questions:

Do the other rare bodies, polonium, actinium, and thorium, that behave in many respects like radium, also share its most recently discovered

criminality has increased terribly all over France, and more especially in Paris; indeed, the outskirts of the French capital have been terrorized by bands of boys who, assuming the picturesque nickname of "Iron Hearts," have shown themselves expert burglars, garroters, and occasionally murderers. In the Nouvelle Revue, M. Garien writes a thoughtful article concerning the very serious problem of the French juvenile criminal.

Some forty years ago, a society was founded which undertook the defense of young criminals, and in connection with the society were organized several admirable institutions which undertook the care of those lads who, if not fit for prison, were yet more unfit to be once more let loose on society. One important law, passed many years ago, caused every criminal under the age of eighteen to be considered still a child, and as such unfit for prison. When this excellent law passed into effect, it was found that many of those who most benefited by it bitterly regretted the change, so much did the juvenile criminal prefer prison life to that of an industrial school or a reformatory.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE REFORMATORIES.

The houses of correction" to which the French juvenile criminal is now sent are twelve in number; six are to all intents and purposes agricultural colleges; in the six others are taught town trades. The state has also three houses of correction for girls, and in addition to these public reformatories there are in France twenty private reformatory schools, where each pupil is paid for by some charitable soul, and where occasionally an incorrigibly naughty boy or girl is sent by its parents!

Very curious and intelligent is the manage ment of these institutions. During the first three weeks of a child's stay, he is isolated from the others, and carefully watched, in order that something may be learned of his character, his temperament, and his aptitudes. Sometimes the poor creature is little more than a baby; when

this is the case, he is most kindly treated, and until the age of ten he has very little to do but to grow strong and healthy; then follow three years of schooling, and from thirteen to sixteen comes learning of a trade. In the agricultural houses of correction, each boy is taught gardening in all its branches, and many boys, after leav ing, become prosperous market gardeners in the neighborhood of Paris.

One important point, and one characteristically French, is that every effort is made to keep the children in touch with their homes. Once a month, they spend one Sunday with their parents, supposing, of course, that the latter are respectable people; once a year, also, each child spends four weeks at home. The task of the house of correction does not cease when the boy or girl passes out into the world; he and she are encouraged to remain on friendly terms with the devoted men and women to whom they owe so much, and everything is done to make them feel that there has been nothing shameful or degrading in the way in which their childhood and youth have been spent.

POST-MORTEM ACTION OF THE HEART.

PROF.

ROF. H. E. HERING makes an interesting contribution to our knowledge of the mechanism of the action of the heart in the last number of the Centralblatt für Physiologie.

Death is not instantaneous, for many of the different tissues of an animal continue their activities long after the organism as a whole may be said to be dead. This is especially noticeable in some of the lower animals. Ciliated cells may be taken from the gills of a clam, or the trachea of a dead frog, and their action observed under the microscope for a long time. If isolated cells are supplied with a nutrient solution, they may be kept alive much longer, cells from the brain of a frog having been kept alive in this way for over a week, as shown by their changes of shape in response to stimuli.

The heart of many animals will continue to beat long after its removal from the body. The heart of the frog will beat for hours, and that of the turtle or snake for several days, or perhaps a week, after the animal has been killed.

ISOLATION OF THE MAMMALIAN HEART.

From previous experiments made on the rab bit, cat, dog, and monkey, Professor Hering found that the mammalian heart can be uncovered and all its workings observed, as well as the effects of the stimulation of its nerves, if it is kept supplied with physiological salt solution.

In these investigations, the heart was not cut

out after killing the animal, but, instead, all superfluous fluid was removed, and the heart, without the lungs, was left in communication with the rest of the body by means of the great blood vessels and the nerves.

It was found that the stimuli which normally cause more rapid beating of the heart continue to produce stronger and more rapid beating of the ventricle when the auricle has been cut away as far as the wall separating it from the ventricle. When the auricle is removed in this way, a small remnant of the musculature of its walls necessarily adheres to the ventricle, and the question arises whether the effects are brought about directly by the action of stimuli upon the ventricle or indirectly through the action of the small part of the auricle which remains.

The writer believes that the changes in rate and intensity of the contractions are effected through the remnant of the auricle. As far as the observations extended, no results were produced by stimulating the vagus nerve, branches of which extend to the heart.

If the auricle is cut away from a beating heart, the ventricle is still for a time, and after this pause begins to beat again, but more slowly than before. It appears to be immaterial whether the last stroke of the knife cuts the wall of the auricle or the partition between the auricle and the ventricle, and the inaction of the ventricle, apparently, is not the result of the shock, but is due to a sudden lack of stimulation.

The action of electrical stimuli, as well as of various poisons, such as atropine, muscarin, and others, was also tried. It appeared that every action of the heart, both spontaneous and induced, can be observed when it is exposed in this way and supplied with physiological salt solution, whether the heart is left intact or the auricle is cut away.

MOTION ONCE STOPPED CAN BE RESUMED.

If a solution of potassium chloride is injected into the blood vessels, the heart stops beating, but after some time all parts begin to beat rhyth mically together again. Potassium injected in this way acts directly upon the heart musculature, which, according to the amount injected, becomes less and less responsive to stimulus, finally not responding at all, and later regains its activity because the potassium has been washed away. The fact that the motion of the heart can be stopped and the different parts again be brought into coördinate activity is of interest, as it has not before been possible to regain coördinate motion in the mammalian heart after it has once been lost.