their nationality and averages computed from the percentages
established for each name. These averages, which appear at the
bottom of each column, give a fair estimation of the capability
of the different nationalities, but are, nevertheless, open to
a few minor errors. For instance, the Germans head the list in
New York with 0.73 per cent. for only one third of a single
name, while the English rank second with a total of 15 5/6
names. The final averages for nationality, however, which
appear at the bottom of the fifth column and which are made
from the averages computed for each city, partly eliminate this
error and place the groups in their proper rank.
In order to make the results more conclusive, general averages
are drawn for each name from the percentages established for
that name in all four cities and are placed in the fifth column
according to their rank. Final averages of percentages for
nationalities are then made from this column, just as they were
for each city. The results obtained agree exactly with the
final averages made before and, therefore, are placed
coincident with them at the bottom of the fifth column.
The results finally arrived at seem to corroborate the
conclusions of Dr. Wood; namely, that in the four leading
American cities, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston,
"those of the English (and Scotch) ancestry are distinctly in
possession of the leading positions, at least from the
standpoint of being widely known." Yet it does not seem safe to
disregard entirely those other nationalities which rank so
closely with the English merely because of the small number of
them included in our consideration; for, as has been stated
above, we do not know what proportion of a certain name to
attribute to various nationalities.
There is one serious, but unavoidable, source of error,
moreover, which has apparently been overlooked. The conclusions
as to the relative intelligence of various races are drawn from
the number of names, belonging to these races, which appeared
in "Who's Who in America." According to the standards of this
compilation, eminence is very largely dependent upon education,
which does not give the emigrants, who are too poor to get
proper education, an equal opportunity to display their
intellectual power and, therefore, to be considered in the
above calculations. Races that immigrated predominantly in the
last century will be less handicapped than those which have
only recently immigrated in large numbers. It is very
difficult, however to know how much weight to place upon this
modifying influence.
Another source of error is the fact that certain nationalities
or races seem to have natural inclinations and desires to
follow in disproportionate numbers one kind of activity or
occupation and are content to let other people rise to those
positions which make them "the best-known men and women of the
United States." As Dr. Woods states, the Jews could not be
expected to show as large a percentage, since they largely turn
their attention to the banking, wholesale and retail trades, in
which they have been very successful, but in which eminence is
not correspondingly recognized in "Who's Who in America."
No comment is made on Jewish achievement, however, because no
Jewish name is among the fifty most common in all four cities,
and hence there are not enough numbers for study. But the
Irish, by their traditional devotion to politics and their
success in attaining the lower ranks of political leadership,
would seem to be in line for recognition in large numbers,
which they nevertheless do not attain.
In spite of these qualifications, however, it becomes apparent
that the statistics above established can not be rejected.
Although they do not exactly justify Dr. Woods's conclusions,
they at least show that the intellectual achievements of
different races vary. They also show that a much more extensive
study of the subject must be made before any conclusions can be
established as final.
We believe, therefore, that Dr. Woods's conclusion--that "there
have been a few notable exceptions, but broadly speaking all
our very capable men of the present day have been engendered
from the Anglo-Saxon element already here before the beginning
of the nineteenth century"--should be modified. A sounder
conclusion and, in fact, the only one that could be reached
through the results established above, would be this:
Achievement in those activities represented in "Who's Who in
America" is acquired disproportionately by stocks predominantly
Teutonic in comparison with the Irish.
A VISIT TO OENINGEN
BY PROFESSOR T. D. A. COCKERELL
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
AS the Rhine broadens on its approach to the Lake of Constance
or Boden Sea it flows through a region made classic by the
researches of scientific men. Here at low tide it is sometimes
possible to see wooden piles which in prehistoric times
supported the houses of the lake-dwelling folk, whose work is
so well represented in various museums, especially at Zurich.
From the river, on each side, the land rises rapidly, and the
rounded summits of the hills are well wooded. It is on the left
side of the Rhine, about two and a half miles below the town of
Stein, that we come to the famous locality for Miocene fossils,
the European representative of our Florissant in Colorado.
In all the books the fossil beds are said to be at Oeningen,
which is the name of a once celebrated Augustinian monastery
about two miles away. Actually, however, the locality is above
the village of Wangen, which is situated on the north bank of
the river. In some quite recent writings Oeningen (Wangen) is
referred to as being in Switzerland; it is in Baden, though the
opposite bank of the Rhine is Swiss. The error is natural,
since the fossils have chiefly been made known by the great
Swiss paleontologist Heer, of Zurich, and the best general
account of them is to be found in his book "The Primaeval World
of Switzerland," of which an excellent English translation
appeared in 1876.
It was at the Oeningen quarries, in the eighteenth century,
that a wonderful vertebrate fossil, some four feet long, was
discovered. A writer of that period, Scheuchzer, announced it
as Homo diluvii testis, a man witness of the deluge! Cuvier
knew better, and was able to demonstrate its relationship to
the giant salamanders of Eastern Asia and North America. It
forms, in fact, a distinct genus of Cryptobranchidae, which
Tschudi, apparently mindful of the early error, named Andrias;
though the proper name of the animal appears to be
Proteocordylus scheuchzeri (Holl.). The stone at Wangen was
used for building purposes, and at one time there were three or
four quarries actively worked. In earlier times the larger
fossils naturally attracted most attention, fishes, snakes,
turtles, fresh-water clams and a variety of leaves and fruits.
Such specimens were saved, and were sold and distributed to
many museums. The supply was good, yet at times not sufficient
for the market; so the monks at Oeningen, and others, would
carve artificial fossils out of the soft rock, coating them
with a brown stain prepared from unripe walnut shells. In later
years, during the middle part of the nineteenth century, the
period of Darwin, the great importance and interest of the
fossil beds came to be better appreciated. Dr. Oswald Heer,
professor at Zurich, an accomplished botanist and entomologist,
did perhaps nine tenths of the work, describing plants,
insects, arachnids and part of the Crustacea. The fishes were
described by Agassiz, and later by Winkler. The remaining
vertebrates were principally made known by E. von Meyer.
From 1847 to 1853 Heer published in three parts a great work on
fossil insects, largely concerned with those from Oeningen.[1]
In this and later writings he made known 464 species from this
locality; but in the latest edition of "The Primaeval World of
Switzerland" it is stated that there are 844 species, 384 of
these being supposedly new, and named, if at all, only in
manuscript.
[1] "Die Insektenfauna der Tertiargebilde von Oeningen und von
Radoboj in Croatien" (Leipzig: Engelmann).
My wife and I, having worked a number of years at Florissant,
were very anxious to see the corresponding European locality
for fossil insects. The opportunity came in 1909, when we were
able to make a short visit to Switzerland after attending the
Darwin celebration at Cambridge. We went first to Zurich, where
in a large hall in the University or Polytechnicum we saw
Heer's collections. A bust of Heer stands in one corner, while
one end of the room is covered by a large painting by Professor
Holzhalb, representing a scene at Oeningen as it may have
appeared in Miocene times, showing a lake with abundant
vegetation on its shores, and appropriate animals in the
foreground. Numerous glass-covered cases contain the
magnificent series of fossils, both plants and animals. Dr.
Albert Heim, professor of geology and director of the
Geological Museum, was most kind in showing us all we wanted to
see, and giving advice concerning the precise locality of the
fossil beds. Professor Heim is an exceedingly active and able
geologist, but neither he nor any one else has continued the
work of Heer, whose collections remain apparently as he left
them. The 384 supposedly new insects are still undescribed,
with a few possible exceptions. I had time only to critically
examine the bees, of which I found three ostensibly new forms.
Of these, one turned out to be a wasp,[2] one was
unrecognizable, but the third was a valid new species, and was
published later in The Entomologist. There can be no doubt that
Heer was too ready to distinguish species of insects in fossils
which were so poorly preserved as to be practically worthless,
consequently part of those he published and many of those he
left unpublished will have to be rejected. Nevertheless, the
Oeningen materials are extremely valuable, both for the number
of species and the good preservation of some of them. All
should be carefully reexamined, and the entomologist who will
give his time to this work will certainly be rewarded by many
interesting discoveries.
[2] Polistes, or very closely related to that genus.
Provided with instructions from Professor Heim, we started on
August 4 for Wangen, going by way of Constance. Thanks to the
map furnished by the Swiss railroad, we had no difficulty in
finding the Rosegarten Museum in Constance, which contains so
many interesting fossils and archeological specimens from the
surrounding region. At the moment we arrived, the old man in
charge was about to go to lunch, and we were assured that it
was impossible to get into the museum. It was then or never for
us, however; and when the necessary argument had been
presented, the curator not only let us in, but remained with us
to point out all the objects of interest, showing a great deal
of pride in the collection. The series of Oeningen fossils
could not, of course, rival that at Zurich; but it contained a
great many remarkable things, including some excellent insects.
We then boarded the river steamer, and, passing through the
Unter Sea, reached the small village of Wangen in the course of
the afternoon. This is not a tourist resort of any consequence;
the local guide book refers to it as follows: "Wangen (with
synagogue). Half an hour to the east is the Castle of Marbach,
now a well-appointed sanatorium for disorders of the nerves and
heart. To the west the romantic citadel Kattenhorn, formerly
used as a rendezvous by notorious highwaymen (at present in the
possession of a pensioned off German officer)." The guide
continues, calling our attention to "Oberstaad. Formerly a
castle, now a weaving mill for hose. Above it (448 meters) the
former celebrated Augustine monastery Oehningen. Near by
interesting and curious STONE FOSSILS are found." Thus the
visitor is likely to be misled as to the whereabouts of the
fossils, the tradition that they are at Oeningen having misled
the author of the guide. At Wangen we found a small but most
excellent hotel conducted by George Brauer, where we hastily
secured a room, and went out to hunt the fossil beds. We were
to walk over half an hour northward, up the hill, and look for
the quarries near the top of the high terrace above the
village. This we did, but at first without result. We passed a
small grassy pit, where some of the rock was visible, but it
did not look at all promising. We went back and forth, and up
the hill, until we were practically on the top. The country was
beautiful, and by the roadside we found magnificent red slugs
(Arion ater var. lamarckii[3]) and many fine snails, including
the so-called Roman snail, Helix pomatia. We accosted the
peasants, and enquired about the "fossilen." The word seemed to
have no meaning for them, so we tried to elucidate it in the
manner of the guide: where were the "stein fossilen"?
Immediately, with animation, we were shown a road going
westward to the town of Stein, where, it was naturally assumed,
the object of our enquiry would be found. Quite discouraged, we
wandered down the hill until we came to the pit we had noticed
when going up. Close by was a neat little cottage, and it
occurred to us to try our luck there as a last resort. We were
glad indeed when there appeared at the door an educated man,
who in excellent Shakespearian English volunteered at once to
show us the fossil beds. It was Dr. Ernst Bacmeister, a man of
considerable note in his own country, whose life and deeds are
duly recorded in "Wer ist's?" He came, with his wife and child,
to Wangen in the summer time, to enjoy these exquisite
surroundings, where he could write happily on philosophical
subjects, without much danger of interruption. Dr. Bacmeister
informed us that the poor little pit close by was in fact one
of the noted quarries, with the sides fallen in and the debris
overgrown with herbage. A short distance away we were shown the
others, in the same discouraging condition.
[3] The earliest name for this richly colored variety is Limax
coccineus Gistel, but it is not Limax coccineus Martyn, 1784;
so the next name, lamarckii, prevails.
One could see that there had once been considerable
excavations, but the good layers were now deeply covered by
talus, and could only be exposed after much digging. It was
about thirty years since the pits had been worked. Dr.
Bacmeister found for us a strong country youth, Max Deschle,
who dug under our direction all next day in the quarry near the
house. The rock is not so easy to work as that at Florissant,
and it does not split so well into slabs, but we readily found
a number of fossils. Most numerous were the plants; leaves of
cinnamon (Cinnamomurn polymorphum), soapberry (Sapindus
falcifolius), maple (Acer trilobatum), grass (Poacites loevis)
and reeds (Phragmites oeningensis), with twigs of the conifer
Glyptostrobus europoeus. We obtained a single seed of the very
characteristic Podogonium knorrii. Certain molluscs were
abundant; Planorbis declivis, Lymnoea pachygaster, Pisidium
priscum, with occasional fragments of the mussel Anodonta
lavateri. Ostracods, Cypris faba, were also found. The best
find, however, was a well-preserved fish, the lepidocottus
brevis (Agassiz), showing in the region of the stomach its last
meal, of Planorbis declivis. This greatly interested Max, who
during the rest of the day chanted, as he swung the pick,
"Fischlein, Fischlein, komme!"--but no other Fischlein was
apparently within hearing distance. Not a single insect was
obtained, except that on the talus at one of the other quarries
I picked up a poorly preserved beetle, apparently the Nitidula
melanaria of Heer.
We left Wangen on the morning of August 6, and proceeded up the
Rhine to Schaffhausen and Basle. At Basle we found a certain
number of Oeningen (Wangen) fossils in the museum.
Comparing Wangen with Florissant, it appears that the Colorado
locality is more extensive, more easily worked, and provides
many more well-preserved fossils. On the other hand, Wangen has
proved far richer in vertebrates and crustacea, and on the
whole gives us a better idea of the fauna as it must have
existed. Florissant far exceeds Wangen in the number of
described species, but this is only because it has so many more
insects. Each locality furnishes us with extraordinarily rich
materials, enabling us to picture the life of Miocene times.
Each, by comparison, throws light on the other, and while the
period represented is not sufficiently remote to show much
evidence of progressive evolution, it is hard to exaggerate the
value of the facts for students of geographical distribution.
Much light may also be thrown on the relative stability of
specific characters.
Work on the Florissant fauna is going forward, though not so
fast as one could wish. It is very much to be hoped that the
Wangen quarries will receive attention before many years have
passed. Labor is comparatively cheap in Germany, and with a
force of a dozen men it would not take long to open up the
quarries and get at the best beds. It is really extraordinary
that no one has seen and taken advantage of the opportunities
presented. Probably no obstacles of any consequence would be
put in the way; at least the owner of the quarries came by when
we were digging, and expressed only his good will. With new
researches in the field, combined with studies of the rich
materials awaiting examination at Zurich and elsewhere, no
doubt the knowledge we possess of the European Miocene fauna
could be very greatly increased, to the advantage of all
students of Tertiary life.
THE THEORY AND PRACTISE OF FROST FIGHTING[1]
[1] Some of the instruments used were obtained through a grant
from the Elizabeth Thompson Science Fund.
BY ALEXANDER McADIE
BOTCH PROFESSOR OF METEOROLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ONLY in recent years have aerologists given much attention to
the slow-moving currents of the lower strata of the atmosphere.
These differ greatly from the whirls and cataracts of both low
and high levels which we familiarly know as the winds. The
upper and larger air streams play a part in the formation of
frost, and we do not underestimate their function; but
primarily it is a slow surface flow, almost a creeping of the
air near the ground, which controls the temperature and is
all-important in frost formation. So important is it that the
first law of frost fighting may be expressed as follows:
Where air is in motion and where there is good circulation,
frost is not so likely to occur as where the air is stagnant.
In other words frost in the ordinary meaning of the word is a
problem IN LOCAL AIR DRAINAGE. It is true that there are times
when with thorough ventilation and mixing of the air strata the
temperature will fall rapidly and damage from frost result; but
such conditions are perhaps more fittingly described as cold
waves or freezes, as distinguished from frosts. Thus, in
California during the first week of January, 1913, when there
was much air movement, the citrus fruit crop was damaged to the
extent of $20,000,000. The condition is generally referred to
as a frost, but it was quite different from the usual frost
conditions in that section. It is, however, interesting to note
that improved frost-fighting devices were used with much
success and the total savings aggregated about $25,000,000. The
orange growers also had the benefit of accurate forecasts and
expert advice and were thus able to provide fuel and labor in
advance. Passing over at present the larger disturbances, we
shall consider only the frosts of still nights. And it should
not be forgotten that the accumulated losses of these frosts
may equal the losses of the individual freezes, for the latter
occur at long intervals, while the quiet frosts of the early
fall and the late spring are recurrent, destroying flowers,
fruits and tender vegetation in many sections, year after year.
Air may flow in any direction, but attention has been centered
more upon the flow in a horizontal than in a vertical
direction. Thus none of the wind instruments used at Weather
Bureau stations gives any record of the up and down movement of
the air. In frosts of the usual type this vertical displacement
is all-important. True, there may be brought into the district,
by horizontal displacement, large masses of cold air and the
temperature thus materially lowered; but the marked INVERSION
of temperature occurs only when these horizontal currents or
winds are lulled. On windy nights, as is well known, there is
less likelihood of frost than on quiet nights, because of the
thorough mixing of the air vertically. There is then no
tendency for stratification and the formation of levels of
different temperature, followed by low surface temperature.
In general, the temperature falls as one rises in the air; but,
at times of frost, it is found that the higher levels are
warmer than the lower ones. The coldest stratum is found about
ten centimeters (four inches) above the ground; while at a
distance of ten meters temperatures are as much as five degrees
higher than at the ground.
It may be well to refer for a moment to the variations in
temperature known as inversions. In the accompanying diagram
it will be seen that the temperature falls with elevation, and
starting from the ground on a day when the temperature is near
the freezing point, 273 degrees A., one finds at a height of
seven thousand meters a fall of about forty degrees. It is not
easy to represent on a single diagram the variation in detail
and therefore we have divided the air column into three parts,
the scales being as one to a hundred.
The right-hand diagram shows the gradual rise in temperature
for a height of one meter and the peculiar inversion that
occurs a few centimeters above the ground. Unfortunately it is
in this layer where detailed temperature observations are most
needed that our instruments are least satisfactory. Ordinary
thermometers can not be relied on for such small differences
and the exploration of this stratum by self-recording
instruments is difficult. In the middle diagram is shown the
temperature gradient at times of frost, from the ground to a
height of one hundred meters. It will be seen that at a height
of fifty meters the temperature may be ten degrees higher; and
in general the rise continues with elevation. A good
illustration of a valley inversion is given by the chart of May
20, in which continuous records for three levels, 18, 64 and
196 meters above sea level, are given. At such times fruit or
flowers on hillsides escape damage from frost while in all the
depressions and low level places the injury may be marked.
These differences in temperature are not at all unusual and may
be anticipated on clear, still nights during spring, fall and
winter. Clouds or a moderate wind will prevent such an
inversion. We shall refer again to this in speaking of the
cranberry bogs of the Cape Cod district and the frost warnings
issued from Blue Hill Observatory.
The great inversion in the atmosphere, however, is that which
we have indicated as occurring at the height of nine thousand
meters. Above this, the temperature ceases to fall and we enter
what has been called the stratosphere or isothermal region. For
convenience we will call this upper change the MAJOR inversion
and the lower one near the ground the MINOR inversion. In some
ways we know more about the former than the latter. Strictly
speaking, the minor inversion is the chief factor in
determining local climate since it controls night and early
morning temperatures and in large measure the early or late
blooming of flowers and ripening of fruits.
Ordinarily cold air falls to the ground; but not always, for
under certain conditions cold, heavy air may actually rise,
displacing warm, lighter air. But such conditions can be
explained and there is no contradiction of the fundamental law
that if acted on only by gravity, cold air, being denser, will
settle to the ground and warm air, being lighter, will rise.
And there must be a certain relation between the height of the
level from which the cold air falls and the level to which the
warm air rises. In other words, we have to apply the laws of
falling bodies since a given mass of air, although invisible,
is matter and as subject to gravity as a cannon ball.