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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 10

"Echinoderma" to "Edward"

Author: Various

Release Date: January 17, 2011 [EBook #34992]

Language: English

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THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

 

VOLUME VIII SLICE X

Echinoderma to Edward

 

Articles in This Slice

ECHINODERMA EDESSA

(Macedonia)

ECHINUS EDESSA

(Mesopotamia)

ECHIUROIDEA EDFU ECHMIADZIN EDGAR

(king of the English)

ECHO EDGAR

(son of Edward)

ECHTERNACH EDGECUMBE ECHUCA EDGE HILL ÉCIJA EDGEWORTH, MARIA ECK, JOHANN MAIER EDGEWORTH, RICHARD LOVELL ECKERMANN, JOHANN PETER EDGEWORTH DE FIRMONT, HENRY ESSEX ECKERNFÖRDE EDGREN-LEFFLER, ANNE CHARLOTTE ECKERSBERG, KRISTOFFER EDHEM PASHA ECKHART, JOHANNES EDICT ECKHEL, JOSEPH HILARIUS EDINBURGH ECKMÜHL EDINBURGHSHIRE ECLECTICISM EDISON, THOMAS ALVA ECLIPSE EDMONTON

(Alberta, Canada)

ECLIPTIC EDMONTON

(England)

ECLOGITE EDMUND, SAINT ECLOGUE EDMUND

(king of East Anglia)

ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY EDMUND I. ECONOMICS EDMUND

(Ironside)

ECONOMY

(Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)

EDMUND

(king of Sicily)

ECONOMY EDMUNDS, GEORGE FRANKLIN ECSTASY EDOM ECTOSPORA EDRED ECUADOR EDRIC, STREONA ECZEMA EDUCATION EDAM EDWARD

(The Elder)

EDDA EDWARD

(The Martyr)

EDDIUS EDWARD

(The Confessor)

EDELINCK, GERARD EDWARD I. EDELWEISS EDWARD II. EDEN, SIR ASHLEY EDWARD III. EDEN EDWARD IV. EDENBRIDGE EDWARD V. EDEN HALL, LUCK OF EDWARD VI. EDENKOBEN EDWARD VII. EDENTATA EDWARD

(prince of Wales)

EDENTON

 

ECHINODERMA.1 The ἐχινόδερμα, or “urchin-skinned” animals, have long been a favourite subject of study with the collectors of sea-animals or of fossils, since the lime deposited in their skins forms hard tests or shells readily preserved in the cabinet. These were described during the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries by many eminent naturalists, such as J.T. Klein, J.H. Linck, C. Linnaeus, N.G. Leske, J.S. Miller, L. v. Buch, E. Desor and L. Agassiz; but it was the researches of Johannes Müller (1840-1850) that formed the groundwork of scientific conceptions of the group, proving it one of the great phyla of the animal kingdom. The anatomists and embryologists of the next quarter of a century confirmed rather than expanded the views of Müller. Thus, about 1875, the distinction of Echinoderms from such radiate animals as jelly-fish and corals (see Coelentera), by their possession of a body-cavity (“coelom”) distinct from the gut, was fully realized; while their severance from the worms (especially Gephyrea), with which some Echinoderrns were long confused, had been necessitated by the recognition in all of a radial symmetry, impressed on the original bilateral symmetry of the larva through the growth of a special division of the coelom, known as the “hydrocoel,” and giving rise to a set of water-bearing canals—the water-vascular or ambulacral system. There was also sufficient comprehension of the differences between the main classes of Echinoderms—the sea-urchins or Echinoidea, the starfish or Asteroidea, the brittle-stars and their allies known as Ophiuroidea, the worm-like Holothurians, the feather-stars and sea-lilies called Crinoidea, with their extinct relatives the sac-like Cystidea, the bud-formed Blastoidea, and the flattened Edrioasteroidea—while within the larger of these classes, such as Echinoidea and Crinoidea, fair working classifications had been established. But the study that should elucidate the fundamental similarities or homologies between the several classes, and should suggest the relations of the Echinoderma to other phyla, had scarcely begun. Indeed, the time was not ripe for such discussions, still less for the tracing of lines of descent and their embodiment in a genealogical classification. Since then exploring expeditions have made known a host of new genera, often exhibiting unfamiliar types of structure.

Among these the abyssal starfish and holothurians described by W.P. Sladen and H. Théel respectively, in the Report of the “Challenger” Expedition, are most notable. The sea-urchins, ophiuroids and crinoids also have yielded many important novelties to A. Agassiz (“Challenger,” “Blake,” and “Albatross” Expeditions), T. Lyman (“Challenger”), Sladen (“Astrophiura,” Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1879), F.J. Bell (numerous papers in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. and in Proc. Zool. Soc.), E. Perrier (“Travailleur” and “Talisman,” Cape Horn and Monaco Expeditions), P.H. Carpenter “Challenger” Reports), and others. The anatomical researches of these authors, as well as those of S. Lovén (“On Pourtalesia” and “Echinologica,” published by the Swedish Academy of Science), H. Ludwig (Morphologische Studien, Leipzig, 1877-1882), O. Hamann (Histologie der Echinodermen, Jena, 1883-1889), L. Cuénot (“Études morphologiques,” Arch. Biol., 1891, and papers therein referred to), P.M. Duncan (“Revision of the Echinoidea,” Journ. Linn. Soc., 1890), H. Prouho (“Sur Dorocidaris,” Arch. Zool. Exper., 1888), and many more, need only be mentioned to recall the great advance that has been made. In physiology may be instanced W.B. Carpenter’s proof of the nervous nature of the chambered organ and axial cords of crinoids (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1884), the researches of H. Durham (Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., 1891) and others into the wandering cells of the body-cavity, and the study of the deposition of the skeletal substance (“stereom”) by Théel (in Festskrift för Lilljeborg, 1896). Knowledge of the development has been enormously extended by numerous embryologists, e.g. Ludwig (op. cit.), E.W. MacBride (“Asterina gibbosa,” Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., 1896), H. Bury (Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., 1889, 1895), Seeliger (on “Antedon,” Zool. Jahrb., 1893), S. Goto (“Asterias pallida,” Journ. Coll. Sci. Japan, 1896), C. Grave (“Ophiura,” Mem. Johns Hopkins Univ., 1899), Théel (“Echinocyamus,” Nov. Act. Soc. Sci. Upsala, 1892), R. Semon (“Synapta,” Jena. Zeitschr., 1888), and Lovén (opp. citt.); and though the theories based thereon may have been fantastic and contradictory, we are now near the time when the results can be co-ordinated and some agreement reached. But the scattered details of comparative anatomy are capable of manifold arrangement, while the palimpsest of individual development is not merely fragmentary, but often has the fragments misplaced. The morphologist may propose classifications, and the embryologist may erect genealogical trees, but all schemes which do not agree with the direct evidence of fossils must be abandoned; and it is this evidence, above all, that gained enormously in volume and in value during the last quarter of the 19th century. The Silurian crinoids and cystids of Sweden have been illustrated in N.P. Angelin’s Iconographia crinoideorum (1878); the Palaeozoic crinoids and cystids of Bohemia are dealt with in J. Barrande’s Système silurien (1887 and 1899); P.H. Carpenter published important papers on fossil crinoids in the Journal of the Geological Society, on Cystidea in that of the Linnean Society, 1891, and, together with R. Etheridge, jun., compiled the large Catalogue of Blastoidea in the British Museum, 1886; O. Jaekel, in addition to valuable studies on crinoids and cystids appearing in the Zeitschrift of the German Geological Society, has published the first volume of Die Stammesgeschichte der Pelmatozoen (Berlin, 1899), a richly suggestive work; the Mesozoic Echinoderms of France, Switzerland and Portugal have been made known by P. de Loriol, G.H. Cotteau, J. Lambert, V. Gauthier and others (see Paléontologie française, Mém. Soc. paléontol. de la Suisse, Trabalhos Comm. Geol. Portugal, &c.); a beautiful and interesting Devonian fauna from Bundenbach has been described by O. Follmann, Jaekel, and especially B. Stürtz (see Verhandl. nat. Vereins preuss. Rheinlande, Paläont. Abhandl., and Palaeontographica); while the multitude of North American palaeozoic crinoids has been attacked by C. Wachsmuth and F. Springer in the Proceedings (1879, 1881, 1885, 1886), of the Philadelphia Academy and the Memoirs (1897) of the Harvard Museum.

The vast mass of material made known by these and many other distinguished writers has to be included in our classification, and that classification itself must be controlled by the story it reveals. Thus it is that a change, characteristic of modern systematic zoology, is affecting the subdivisions of the classes. It is not long since the main lines of division corresponded roughly to gaps in geological history: the orders were Palaeocrinoidea and Neocrinoidea, Palechinoidea and Euechinoidea, Palaeasteroidea and Euasteroidea, and so forth. Or divisions were based upon certain modifications of structure which, as we now see, affected assemblages of diverse affinity: thus both Blastoidea and Euechinoidea were divided into Regularia and Irregularia; the Holothuroidea into Pneumophora and Apneumona; and Crinoids were discussed under the heads “stalked” and “unstalked.” The barriers between these groups may be regarded as horizontal planes cutting across the branches of the ascending tree of life at levels determined chiefly by our ignorance; as knowledge increases, and as the conception of a genealogical classification gains acceptance, they are being replaced by vertical partitions which separate branch from branch. The changes may be appreciated by comparing the systematic synopses at the end of this article with the classification adopted in 1877 in the 9th edition of the Ency. Brit. (vol. vii.), or in any zoological text-book contemporary therewith. In the present stage of our knowledge these minor divisions are the really important ones. For, whereas to one brilliant suggestion of far-reaching homology another can always be opposed, by the detailed comparison of individual growth-stages in carefully selected series of fossils, and by the minute application to these of the principle that individual history repeats race history, it actually is possible to unfold lines of descent that do not admit of doubt. The gradual linking up of these will manifest the true genealogy of each class, and reconstruct its ancestral forms by proof instead of conjecture. The problem of the interrelations of the classes will thus be reduced to its simplest terms, and even questions as to the nature of the primitive Echinoderm and its affinity to the ancestors of other phyla may become more than exercises for the ingenuity of youth. Work has been and is being done by the laborious methods here alluded to, and though the diversity of opinion as to the broader groupings of classification is still restricted only by the number of writers, we can point to an ever-increasing body of assured knowledge on which all are agreed. Unfortunately such allusion to these disconnected certainties as alone might be introduced here would be too brief for comprehension, and we are forced to select a few of the broader hypotheses for a treatment that may seem dogmatic and prejudiced.

Fig. 1.

—Diagram of a simple form of Crinoid, with five arms, each forking once; the one nearest the observer is removed to expose the tegmen of five orals. This crinoid has only two circlets of plates in the cup, but the cup analysed in the adjoining diagram has in addition infrabasals and a centrale

C. Fig. 2.

—An early stage in the development of

Antedon

, showing the foot-plate or “dorso-central”

fp

at the end of the stem

col.

Some of the thecal plates, infrabasals

I B

, basals

B

, and orals

O

are forming around the body-cavities

r.pc

and

l.pc

;

p

is the water-pore. (After Seeliger.)

Calycinal Theory.—The theory which had most influence on the conceptions of Echinoderms in the two concluding decades of the 19th century was that of Lovén, elaborated by P.H. Carpenter, Sladen and others. This, which may be called the calycinal theory, will be appreciated by comparing the structure of a simple crinoid with that of some other types. A crinoid reduced to its simplest elements consists of three principal portions—(i.) a theca or test enclosing the viscera; (ii.) five arms stretching upwards or outwards from the theca, sometimes single, sometimes branching; (iii.) a stem stretching downwards from the theca and attaching it to the sea-floor (see fig. 1). That part of the theca below the origins of the free arms is called the “dorsal cup”; the ventral part above the origins of the arms, serving as cover to the cup, is known as the “tegmen.” All these parts are supported by plates or ossicles of crystalline carbonate of lime. The cup, in its simplest form, consists of two circlets of five plates. Each plate of the upper circlet supports an arm, and is called a “radial”; the plates of the lower circlet, the “basals,” rest on the stem and alternate with those of the upper circlet, i.e. are interradial in position. Some crinoids have yet another circlet below these, the constituent plates of which are called “infrabasals,” and are situated radially. The tegmen in most primitive forms, as well as in the embryonic stages of the living Antedon (fig. 2), consists of five large triangular plates, alternating with the radials, and called “orals,” because they roof over the mouth. In addition to these three or four circlets of plates, two other elements were once supposed essential to the ideal crinoid: the dorso-central and the oro-central. The former term was applied to a flattened plate observed in the embryonic stage of a single genus (Antedon) at that end of the stem attached to the sea-floor, and comparable to the foot of a wine-glass (fig. 2). In some crinoids which have no trace of a stem (e.g. Marsupites) a pentagonal plate is found at the bottom of the cup, where the stem would naturally have arisen (“centrale” in fig. 1); and since it was believed that the stem always grew by addition of ossicles immediately below the infrabasals, it was inferred that this pentagonal plate was the centro-dorsal in its primitive position, as though the wine-glass had been evolved from a tumbler by pulling the bottom out to form the foot. The oro-central was, it must be admitted, a theoretical conception due to a desire for symmetry, and was not confirmed by anything better than some erroneous observations on certain fossils, which were supposed to show a plate at the oral pole between the five orals; but this plate, so far as it exists at all, is now known to be nothing but an oral shifted in position. The theory was that all the plates just described, and more particularly those of the cup, which were termed “the calycinal system,” could be traced, not merely in all crinoids, but in all Echinoderms, whether fixed forms such as cystids and blastoids, or free forms such as ophiuroids and echinoids, even—with the eye of faith—in holothurians. It was admitted that these elements might atrophy, or be displaced, or be otherwise obscured; but their complete and symmetrical disposition was regarded as typical and original. Thus the genera exhibiting it were regarded as primitive, and those orders and classes in which it was least obscured were supposed to approach most nearly the ancestral Echinoderm. Every one knows that an “apical system,” composed of two circlets known as “genitals” or basals and “oculars” or radials, occurs round the aboral pole of echinoids (fig. 3, A), and that a few genera (e.g. Salenia, fig. 3, B) possess a sub-central plate (the “suranal”), which might be identified with the centro-dorsal. It is also the case that many asterids (fig. 3, D) and ophiurids (fig. 3, C) have a similar arrangement of plates on the dorsal (i.e. aboral) surface of the disk. Accepting the homology of these apical systems with the calycinal system, the theory would regard the aboral pole of a sea-urchin or starfish as corresponding in everything, except its relations to the sea-floor, with the aboral pole of a fixed echinoderm.

Fig. 3.

-Supposed calycinal systems of free-moving Echinoderms. A, regular sea-urchin (

Cidaris

); B, sea-urchin with a suranal plate (

Salenia

); C, developing ophiurid (

Amphiura

); D, young starfish (

Zoroaster

).

The theory has been vigorously opposed, notably by Semon (op. cit.), who saw in the holothurians a nearer approach to the ancestral form than was furnished by any calyculate echinoderm, and by the Sarasins, who derived the echinoids from the holothurians through forms with flexible tests (Echinothuridae, which, however, are now known to be specialized in this respect). The support that appeared to be given to the theory by the presence of supposed calycinal plates in the embryo of echinoids and asteroids has been, in the opinion of many, undermined by E.W. MacBride (op. cit.), who has insisted that in the fixed stage of the developing starfish, Asterina, the relations of these plates to the stem are quite different from those which they bear in the developing and adult crinoid. But, however correct the observations and the homologies of MacBride may be, they do not, as Bury (op. cit.) has well pointed out, afford sufficient grounds for his inference that the abactinal (i.e. aboral) poles of starfish and crinoids are not comparable with one another, and that all conclusions based on the supposed homology of the dorso-central of echinoids and asteroids with that of crinoids are incorrect. Bury himself, however, has inflicted a severe blow on the theory by his proof that the so-called oculars of Echinoidea, which were supposed to represent the radials, are homologous with the “terminals” (i.e. the plates at the tips of the rays) in Asteroidea and Ophiuroidea, and therefore not homologous with the radially disposed plates often seen around the aboral pole of those animals. For, if these radial constituents of the supposed apical system in an ophiurid have really some other origin, why can we not say the same of the supposed basals? Indeed, Bury is constrained to admit that the view of Semon and others may be correct, and that these so-called calycinal systems may not be heirlooms from a calyculate ancestor, but may have been independently developed in the various classes owing to the action of similar causes. That this view must be correct is urged by students of fossils. Palaeontology lends no support to the idea that the dorso-central is a primitive element; it exists in none of the early echinoids, and the suranal of Saleniidae arises from the minor plates around the anus. There is no reason to suppose that the central apical plate of certain free-swimming crinoids has any more to do with the distal foot-plate of the larval Antedon stem than has the so-called centro-dorsal of Antedon itself, which is nothing but the compressed proximal end of the stem. As for the supposed basals of Echinoidea, Asteroidea and Ophiuroidea, they are scarcely to be distinguished among the ten or more small plates that surround the anus of Bothriocidaris, which is the oldest and probably the most ancestral of fossil sea-urchins (fig. 5). A calycinal system may be quite apparent in the later Ophiuroidea and in a few Asteroidea, but there is no trace of it in the older Palaeozoic types, unless we are to transfer the appellation to the terminals. Those plates are perhaps constant throughout sea-urchins and starfish (though it would puzzle any one to detect them in certain Silurian echinoids), and they may be traced in some of the fixed echinoderms; but there is no proof that they represent the radials of a simple crinoid, and there are certainly many cystids in which no such plates existed. Lovén and M. Neumayr adduced the Triassic sea-urchin Tiarechinus, in which the apical system forms half of the test, as an argument for the origin of Echinoidea from an ancestor in which the apical system was of great importance; but a genus appearing so late in time, in an isolated sea, under conditions that dwarfed the other echinoid dwellers therein, cannot seriously be thought to elucidate the origin of pre-Silurian Echinoidea, and the recent discovery of an intermediate form suggests that we have here nothing but degenerate descendants of a well-known Palaeozoic family (Lepidocentridae). But to pursue the tale of isolated instances would be wearisome. The calycinal theory is not merely an assertion of certain homologies, a few of which might be disputed without affecting the rest: it governs our whole conception of the echinoderms, because it implies their descent from a calyculate ancestor—not a “crinoid-phantom,” that bogey of the Sarasins, but a form with definite plates subject to a quinqueradiate arrangement, with which its internal organs must likewise have been correlated. To this ingenious and plausible theory the revelations of the rocks are more and more believed to be opposed.

Fig. 4.

—The

Pentactula

stage in the development of

Synapta

.

T, The five interradial tentacles.

M, The water-pore, leading by the stone-canal stc to the water-ring, from which hangs a Polian vesicle pb.

oc, Supposed otocysts.

m, Longitudinal muscles.

sk, Calcareous spicules.

st, Stomach.

(After Semon.)

Pentactaea Theory.—In opposition to the calycinal theory has been the Pentactaea theory of R. Semon. There have always been many zoologists prepared to ascribe an ancestral character to the holothurians. The absence of an apical system of plates; the fact that radial symmetry has not affected the generative organs, as it has in all other recent classes; the well-developed muscles of the body-wall, supposed to be directly inherited from some worm-like ancestor; the presence on the inner walls of the body in the family Synaptidae of ciliated funnels, which have been rashly compared to the excretory organs (nephridia) of many worms; the outgrowth from the rectum in other genera of caeca (Cuvierian organs and respiratory trees), which recall the anal glands of the Gephyrean worms; the absence of podia (tube-feet) in many genera, and even of the radial water-vessels in Synaptidae; the absence of that peculiar structure known in other echinoderms by the names “axial organ,” “ovoid gland,” &c.; the simpler form of the larva—all these features have, for good reason or bad, been regarded as primitive. Some of the more striking of these features are confined to Synaptidae; in that family too the absence of the radial water-vessels from the adult is correlated with continuity of the circular muscle-layer, while the gut runs almost straight from the anterior mouth to the posterior anus. Early in the life-history of Synapta occurs a stage with five tentacles around the mouth, and into these pass canals from the water-ring, the radial canals to the body-wall making a subsequent, and only temporary, appearance (fig. 4). Semon called this stage the Pentactula, and supposed that, in its early history, the class had passed through a similar stage, which he called the Pentactaea, and regarded as the ancestor of all Echinoderms. It has since been proved that the five tentacles with their canals are interradial, so that one can scarcely look on the Pentactula as a primitive stage, while the apparent simplicity of the Synaptidae, at least as compared with other holothurians, is now believed to be the result of regressive changes. The Pentactaea, at all events as it sprang from the brain of Semon, must pass to the limbo of mythological ancestors.

Pelmatozoic Theory.—The rejection of the calycinal and Pentactaea theories need not scatter our conceptions of Echinoderm structure back into the chaos from which they seemed to have emerged. The idea of a calyculate ancestor, though by no means connoting fixation, turned men’s minds in the direction of the fixed forms, simply because in them the calyx was best developed. The Pentactaea again suggested a search for some primitive type in which quinqueradiate symmetry was exhibited in circumoral appendages, but had not affected the nervous, water-vascular, muscular or skeletal systems to any great extent, and the generative organs not at all. Study of the earliest larval stages has always led to the conclusion that the Echinoderms must have descended from some freely-moving form with a bilateral symmetry, and, connecting this with the ideas just mentioned, we reach the conception that this supposed bilateral ancestor (or Dipleurula) may have become fixed, and may have gradually acquired a radial symmetry in consequence of its sedentary mode of life. The different extent of quinqueradiate symmetry in the different classes would thus depend on the period at which they diverged from the sedentary stock. The tracing of this history, and the explanation of the general characters of Echinoderms and of the differentiating features of the classes in accordance therewith, constitutes the Pelmatozoic theory.

The word “Pelmatozoa” literally means “stalked animals,” but the name is now used to denote all Cystidea, Blastoidea, Crinoidea and Edrioasteroidea, as opposed to the other classes, which may be called Eleutherozoa. Many Pelmatozoa have, it is true, no stalk, while some are freely-moving, but all agree in the possession of certain characters obviously connected with a fixed mode of life. Thus, the mouth is central and turned away from the sea-floor; the animal does not seize its food by tentacles, limbs or jaws, neither does it move in search of it, but a series of ciliated grooves which radiate from the mouth sweep along currents of water, in the eddies of which minute food-particles are caught up and carried down into the gullet; the undigested food is driven out through an anus which is on the upper or oral side of the theca, but as far distant as practicable from the mouth and ciliated grooves. Such characters are found in any primitive, sedentary group. More peculiarly Echinoderm features, in which the Pelmatozoan nature is manifest, are the enclosing of the viscera in a calcified and plated theca, for protection against those enemies from which a fixed animal cannot flee; the development, at the aboral pole of this theca, of a motor nerve-centre giving off branches to the stroma connecting the various plates of the theca and of its brachial, anal, and columnar extensions, and thus co-ordinating the movements of the whole skeleton; the absence of suckers from the podia, which, when present, are respiratory, not locomotor, in function. There are other features of most, if not all, Pelmatozoa that appear to be due to a fixed existence; but those are also found in the Eleutherozoa. The Pelmatozoic theory thus regards the Pelmatozoa as the more ancestral forms, and the Pelmatozoan stage as one that must have been passed through by all Echinoderms during their evolution from the Dipleurula. It might be possible to prove the origin of all classes from Pelmatozoa, without thereby explaining the origin of such fundamental features as radial symmetry, the developmental metamorphosis, and the torsion that affects both gut and body-cavities during that process; but the acceptance of a Dipleurula as the common ancestor necessitates an explanation of these features. Such explanation is an integral part of the Pelmatozoic theory, but is provided by no other.

The evidence for the Pelmatozoic theory is supplied by palaeontology, embryology, the comparative anatomy of the classes, and a consideration of other phyla. Palaeontology, so far as it goes, is a sure guide, but some of the oldest fossiliferous rocks yield remains of distinctly differentiated crinoids, asteroids and echinoids, so that the problem is not solved merely by collecting fossils. Two lines of argument appear fruitful. First, a comparison of the relative numbers of the representatives of the various classes at different epochs; according to this they may be placed in the following order, with the oldest first: Cystidea, Crinoidea, Blastoidea, Asteroidea, Ophiuroidea, Echinoidea. As for Holothuroidea, the fossil evidence allows us to say no more than that the class existed in early Carboniferous times, if not before. The second method is to work out by slow and sure steps the lines of descent of the different families, orders, and classes, and so either to arrive at the ancestral form of each class, or to plot out the curve of evolution, which may then legitimately be projected into “the dark backward and abysm of time.” In this way the many highly modified orders of Cystidea may be traced back to a simple, many-plated ancestor with little or no radiate symmetry (see below). All the complicated structures of Blastoidea are evolved from a fairly simple type, which in its turn is linked on to one of the cystid orders. That the crinoids are all deducible from some such simple form as that above described under the head “calycinal theory,” is now generally admitted. Although, in the extreme correlation of the radial food-grooves, nerves, water-vessels, and so forth, with a radiate symmetry of the theca, such a type differs from the Cystidea, while in the possession of jointed processes from the radial plates, bearing the grooves and the various body-systems outwards from the theca, it differs from all other Echinoderms, nevertheless ancient forms are known which, if they are not themselves the actual links, suggest how the crinoid type may have been evolved from some of the more regular cystids. The fourth class of Pelmatozoa—the Edrioasteroidea—differs from the others in the structure of its ambulacra. As in all Pelmatozoa these seem to have borne ciliated food-grooves protected by movable covering-plates (fig. 11). Beneath each food-groove was a radial water-vessel and probably a nerve and blood-vessel, all which structures passed either between certain regularly arranged thecal plates, or along a furrow floored by those plates, which were then in two alternating series. The important and distinctive feature is the presence of pores between the flooring-plates, on either side of the groove; and these, we cannot doubt, served for the passage of podia. Thus in a highly developed edrioasteroid, such as Edrioaster itself (fig. 11), there was a true ambulacrum, apparently constructed like that of a starfish, but differing in the possession of a ciliated food-groove protected by covering-plates. The simpler forms of Edrioasteroidea, with their more sac-like body and undifferentiated plates, may well have been derived from early Cystidea of yet simpler structure, and there seems no reason to follow Jaekel in regarding the class as itself the more primitive. Turning to fossil Asteroidea, we find the earlier ophiurids scarcely distinguishable from the asterids, while in the alternation of the ambulacrals, which undoubtedly correspond to the flooring-plates of Edrioaster, both groups approach the Pelmatozoan type. These facts have been expressed by Sturtz in his names Encrinasteriae and Ophio-encrinasteriae. There is no difficulty in deducing the highly differentiated asterids and ophiurids of a later day from these simpler types. The evolution of the modern Echinoidea from their Palaeozoic ancestors is also well understood, but in this case the ancestral form to which the palaeontologist is led does not at first sight present many resemblances to the Pelmatozoa. It is, however, characterized by simplicity of structure, and a short description of it will serve to clear the problem from unnecessary difficulties. Bothriocidaris (fig. 5), a small echinoid from the Ordovician rocks of Esthonia, is in essential structure just the form demanded by comparative palaeontology to make a starting-point. It is spheroidal, with the mouth and anus at opposite poles; there are five ambulacra, and the ambulacral plates are large, simple and alternating, each being pierced by two podial pores which lie in a small oval depression; the ambulacrals next the mouth form a closed ring of ten plates; the interambulacrals lie in single columns between the ambulacra, and are separated from the mouth-area by the proximal ambulacrals just mentioned, and sometimes by the second set of ambulacrals also; the ambulacra end in the five oculars or terminals, which meet in a ring around the anal area and have no podial pores, but one of them serves as a madreporite; within this ring is a star-shaped area filled with minute irregular plates, none of which can safely be selected as the homologues of the so-called basals or genitals of later forms; within the ring of ambulacrals around the mouth are five somewhat pointed plates, which Jaekel regards as teeth, but which can scarcely be homologous with the interradially placed teeth of later echinoids, since they are radial in position; small spines are present, especially around the podial pores. The position of the pores near the centre of the ambulacrals in Bothriocidaris need not be regarded as primitive, since other early Palaeozoic genera, not to mention the young of living forms, show that the podia originally passed out between the plates, and were only gradually surrounded by their substance; thus the original structure of the echinoid ambulacra differed from that of the early asteroid in the position of the radial vessels and nerves, which here lie beneath the plates instead of outside them. To this point we shall recur; palaeontology, though it suggests a clue, does not furnish an actual link either between Echinoidea and Asteroidea, or between those classes and Pelmatozoa.

Fig. 5.

—

Bothriocidaris globulus.

A, from the side; B, the plates around the aboral pole. (After Jaekel.) The short spines which were attached to the tubercles are not drawn.

The argument from embryology leads further back. First, as already mentioned, it outlines the general features of the Dipleurula; secondly, it indicates the way in which this free-moving form became fixed, and how its internal organs were modified in consequence; but when we seek, thirdly, for light on the relations of the classes, we find the features of the adult coming in so rapidly that such intermediate stages as may have existed are either squeezed out or profoundly modified. The difficulty of rearing the larvae in an aquarium towards the close of the metamorphosis may account for the slight information available concerning the stages that immediately follow the embryonic. Another difficulty is due to the fact that the types studied, and especially the crinoid Antedon, are highly specialized, so that some of the embryonic features are not really primitive as regards the class, but only as regards each particular genus. Thus inferences from embryonic development need to be checked by palaeontology, and supplemented by comparison of the anatomy of other living genera.

Minute anatomical research has also aided to establish the Pelmatozoic theory by the gradual recognition in other classes of features formerly supposed to be confined to Pelmatozoa. Thus the elements of the Pelmatozoan ventral groove are now detected in so different a structure as the echinoid ambulacrum, while an aboral nervous system, the diminished representative of that in crinoids, has been traced in all Eleutherozoa except Holothurians. The broader theories of modern zoology might seem to have little bearing on the Echinoderma, for it is not long since the study of these animals was compared to a landlocked sea undisturbed by such storms as rage around the origin of the Vertebrata. This, however, is no more the case. The conception of the Dipleurula derives its chief weight from the fact that it is comparable to the early larval forms of other primitive coelomate animals, such as Balanoglossus, Phoronis, Chaetognatha, Brachiopoda and Bryozoa. So too the explanation of radial symmetry and torsion of organs as due to a Pelmatozoic mode of life finds confirmation in many other phyla. Instead of discussing all these questions separately, with the details necessary for an adequate presentation of the argument, we shall now sketch the history of the Echinoderms in accordance with the Pelmatozoic theory. Such a sketch must pass lightly over debatable ground, and must consist largely of suggestions still in need of confirmation; but if it serves as a frame into which more precise and more detailed statements may be fitted as they come to the ken of the reader, its object will be attained.

Evolution of the Echinoderms.—It is reasonable to suppose that the Coelomata—animals in which the body-cavity is divided into a gut passing from mouth to anus and a hollow (coelom) surrounding it—were derived from the simpler Coelentera, in which the primitive body-cavity (archenteron) is not so divided, and has only one aperture serving as both mouth and anus. We may, with Sedgwick, suppose the coelom to have originated by the enlargement and separation of pouches that pressed outwards from the archenteron into the thickened body-wall (such structures as the genital pouches of some Coelentera, not yet shut off from the rest of the cavity), and they would probably have been four in number and radially disposed about the central cavity. The evolution of this cavity into a gut is foreshadowed in some Coelentera by the elliptical shape of the aperture, and by the development at its ends of a ciliated channel along which food is swept; we have only to suppose the approximation of the sides of the ellipse and their eventual fusion, to complete the transformation of the radially symmetrical Coelenterate into a bilaterally symmetrical Coelomate with mouth and anus at opposite ends of the long axis. We further suppose that of the four coelomic pouches one was in front of the mouth, one behind the anus, and one on each side. Such an animal, if it ever existed, probably lived near the surface of the sea, and even here it may have changed its medusoid mode of locomotion for one in the direction of its mouth. Thus the bilateral symmetry would have been accentuated, and the organism shaped more definitely into three segments, namely (1) a preoral segment or lobe, containing the anterior coelomic cavity; (2) a middle segment, containing the gut, and the two middle coelomic cavities; (3) a posterior segment, containing the posterior coelomic cavity, which, however, owing to the backward prolongation of the anus, became divided into two—a right and left posterior coelom. Each of these cavities presumably excreted waste products to the exterior by a pore. There was probably a nervous area, with a tuft of cilia, at the anterior end; while, at all events in forms that remained pelagic, the ciliated nervous tracts of the rest of the body may be supposed to have become arranged in bands around the body-segments. Such a form as this is roughly represented to-day by the Actinotrocha larva of Phoronis, the importance of which has been brought out by Masterman. But only slight modifications are required to produce the Tornaria larva of the Enteropneusta and other larvae, including the special type that is inferred from the Dipleurula larval stages of recent forms to have characterized the ancestor of the Echinoderms. We cannot enter here into all the details of comparison between these larval forms; amid much that is hypothetical a few homologies are widely accepted, and the preceding account will show the kind of relation that the Echinoderms bear to other animals, including what are now usually regarded as the ancestors of the Chordata (to which back-boned animals belong), as well as the nature of the evidence that their study has been, or may be, made to yield. How the hypothetical Dipleurula became an Echinoderm, and how the primitive Echinoderms diverged in structure so as to form the various classes, are questions to which an answer is attempted in the following paragraphs:—

Fig. 6.

—Diagrammatic reconstruction of

Dipleurula

. The creature is represented crawling on the sea-floor, but it may equally well have been a floating animal. The ciliated bands are not drawn.

Confining our attention to that form of Dipleurula (fig. 6) which, it is supposed, gave rise to the Echinoderma, we infer from embryological data that its special features were as follow:—The anterior coelomic cavity was wholly or partially divided, and from each half a duct led to the exterior, opening at a pore near the middle line of the back. The middle cavities were smaller, and the ducts from them came to unite with those from the anterior cavities, and no longer opened directly to the exterior; whether these cavities were already specialized as water-sacs cannot be asserted, but they certainly had become so at a slightly later stage. The posterior cavities were the largest, but what had become of their original opening to the exterior is uncertain. The genital products were derived from the lining of the coelomic cavities, but it would not be safe to say that any particular region was as yet specialized for generation. The epithelium of the outer surface was probably ciliated, and a portion of it in the preoral lobe differentiated as a sense-organ, with longer cilia and underlying nerve-centre, from which two nerves ran back below the ventral surface. Into the space between the walls of the coelom and the outer body-wall, originally filled with jelly, definite cells now wandered, chiefly derived from the coelomic walls. Some of these cells produced muscles and connective tissue; others absorbed and removed waste products, iron salts, calcium carbonate and the like, and so were ready to be utilized for the deposition of pigment or of skeletal substance. In some of these respects the Dipleurula may have diverged from the ancestor of Enteropneusta and of other animals, but it could not as yet have been recognized as echinodermal by a zoologist, for it presented none of the structural peculiarities of the modern adult echinoderm.

Fig. 7.

—Diagrammatic reconstruction of primitive Pelmatozoön, seen from the side. The plates of the test are not drawn; their probable appearance may be gathered from fig. 8.

Fig. 8.

—

Aristocystis bohemicus

; side-view of the theca. The internal structure may be gathered from fig. 7.

Fig. 9.

—

Fungocystis rarissima

, one of the Diploporita, in which the thecal plates bordering the food-grooves are not yet regularly arranged. The brachioles are not drawn.

Now ensued the great event that originated the phylum—the discovery of the sea-floor. This being apprehended by the sensory anterior end, it was by that end that the Dipleurula attached itself; not, however, by the pole, since that would have interfered at once with the sensory organ, but a little to one side, the right side being the one chosen for a reason we cannot now fathom; it may be that fixation was facilitated by the presence of the pore on that side, and by the utilization of the excretion from it as a cement. The first result was that which is always seen to follow in such cases—the passage of the mouth towards the upper surface (fig. 7). As it passed up along the left side, the gut caught hold of the left water-sac and pulled it upwards, curving it in the process; this being attached to the left duct from the anterior body-cavity, this structure with its water-pore was also pulled up, and the pore came to lie between mouth and anus. The forward portion of the anterior coelom shared in the constriction and elongation of the preoral lobe; but its hinder portion was dragged up along with the water-pore and formed a canal lying along the outer wall (the parietal canal). As the gut coiled, it pressed inwards the middle of the left posterior coelom of the Dipleurula, and drew the whole towards the mouth, while the corresponding cavity on the right was pressed down by the stomach towards the fixed end of the animal and became involved in the elongation of that region. These changes, which may still be traced in the development of Antedon, resulted in the primitive Pelmatozoön (fig. 7), represented in the rocks by such a genus as Aritocystis (fig. 8). The pear-shaped body is encased in a theca formed by a number of polygonal plates, and is attached by its narrow end. On the broad upper surface are four openings, that nearest the centre being the mouth, which is slit-like, and that nearest the periphery being the anus. The two other openings are minute, and placed between those two; one close to the mouth is almost certainly the water-pore, while that nearer the anus is regarded as a genital aperture. Which of the coelomic cavities this last is connected with is uncertain, for there is considerable doubt as to the origin of the genital glands in the embryonic development of recent echinoderms. It seems clear, however, that there was but a single duct and a single bunch of reproductive cells, as in the holothurians, though perhaps bifurcate, as in some of those animals. The line between mouth and anus, along which these openings are situate, corresponds with the plane of union between the two horns of the curved left posterior coelom, the united walls of which form the “dorsal mesentery.” Since this must have, on our theory, enclosed the parietal canal from the anterior coelom, it is possible that the genital products were developed from the lining cells of that cavity, and that the genital pore was nothing but its original pore not yet united with that from the water-sac. The concrescence of these pores can be traced in other cystids; but as the genital organs became affected by radial symmetry the original function of the duct was lost, and the reproductive elements escaped to the exterior in another way. Aristocystis may have had ciliated food-grooves leading to its mouth, but these have left no traces on the structure of the test. Traces, however, are perceptible in genera believed to be descended from such a simple type, and the majority may be grouped under two heads. One group includes those in which the grooves wander outwards from the mouth over the thecal plates, which gradually become arranged regularly on either side of the grooves, while further extensions ascend from the grooves on small jointed processes called “brachioles” (fig. 9). In the other group the grooves do not tend so much to stretch over the theca as to be raised away from it on relatively larger brachioles, arising close around the mouth (fig. 10).

Fig. 10.

—

Chirocrinus-alter

, one of the Rhombifera, showing the reduced number and regular arrangement of the thecal plates, and the concentration of the brachioles. (Adapted from Jaekel.)

These two types are, in the main, correlated with two gradual differentiations in the minute structure of the thecal plates. Originally the calcareous substance of the plates (stereom) was pierced by irregular canals, more or less vertical, and containing strands of the soft tissue (stroma) that deposited the stereom, as well as spaces filled with fluid. In the former group (fig. 9) these canals became connected in pairs (diplopores) still perpendicular to the surface, and this structure, combined with that of the grooves, characterizes the order—Diploporita. In the latter group (fig. 10) the canals, that is to say, the stroma-strands, came to lie parallel to the surface and to cross the sutures between the plates, which were thus more flexibly and more strongly united: since the canals crossing each suture naturally occupy a rhombic area, the order is called Rhombifera. At first the grooves were three, one proceeding from each end of the mouth-slit, and the third in a direction opposed to the anus; with reference to the Pelmatozoan structure, the anal side may be termed posterior, and this groove anterior. Eventually each lateral groove forked, so that there were five grooves. These gradually impressed themselves on the theca and influenced the arrangement of the internal organs: it is fairly safe to assume that nerves, blood-vessels and branches from the water-sac stretched out along with these grooves, each system starting from a ring around the gullet. At last a quinqueradiate symmetry influenced the plates of the theca, partly through the development of a plate at the end of each groove (terminal), partly through plates at the aboral pole of the theca (basals and infrabasals) arising in response to mechanical pressure, but soon intimately connected with the cords of an aboral nervous system. Before the latter plates arose, the stem had developed by the elongation and constriction of the fixed end of the theca, the gradual regularization of the plates involved, and their coalescence into rings. The crinoid type was differentiated by the extension of the food-grooves and associated organs along radial outgrowths from the theca itself. These constituted the arms (brachia), and five definite radial plates of the theca were specialized for their support. These radials may be homologous with the terminals already mentioned, but this is neither necessary nor certain. In this development of brachial extensions of the theca the genital organs were involved, and their ripe products formed at the ends of the brachia or in the branches therefrom. The remains of the original genital gland within the theca became the “axial organ” surrounded by the “axial sinus” derived from the anterior coelom, and this again by structures derived from the right posterior coelom, which, as explained above, had been depressed to the aboral pole. These last structures formed a nervous sheath around the axial sinus with its blood-vessels, and became divided into five lobes correlated with the five basals (the “chambered organ”) and forming the aboral nerve-centre. Before these changes were complete the Holothurioidea must have diverged, by the assumption of a crawling existence. Thus in them the mouth and anus reverted to opposite poles, and only the torsion of the gut and coelom, and the radial extensions of the nervous, water-vascular and blood-vascular systems, testified to their Pelmatozoan ancestry. The ciliated grooves, no longer needed for the collection of food, closed over, and are still traceable as ciliated canals overlying the radial nerves. At the same time the thecal plates degenerated into spicules. The Edrioasteroidea followed a different line from that of the cystids above mentioned and their descendants. The theca became sessile, and in its later developments much flattened (fig. 11). Mouth, water-pore and anus remained as in Aristocystis, but the five ciliated grooves radiated from the mouth between the thecal plates rather than over them, and were, as usual, protected by covering-plates. The important feature was the extension of radial canals from the water-sac along these grooves, with branches passing between the flooring-plates of the grooves (fig. 12, A). The resemblance of the flooring-plates to the ambulacral ossicles of a starfish is so exact that one can explain it only by supposing similar relations of the water-canals and their branches (podia). On the thinly plated under surface of well-preserved specimens of Edrioaster are seen five interradial swellings (fig. 11, B). These are likely to have been produced by the ripe genital glands, which may have extruded their products directly through the membranous integument of the under side. No other way out for them is apparent, and it is clear that Edrioaster was not permanently and solidly fixed to the sea-floor.

Fig. 11.

—

Edrioaster.

A, upper or oral surface of

E. Bigsbyi

, with the covering-plates on the anterior and left posterior food-grooves, but removed from the others, which show only the flooring-plates, between which are pores; B, under surface of

E. Buchianus

, with covering-plates on right posterior and right anterior food-grooves (left hand in the drawing). The * denotes the position of the anal interradius.

Now comes a great change, unfortunately difficult to follow whether in the fossils or in the modern embryos. We suppose some such form as Edrioaster, which appears to have lived near the shore, to have been repeatedly overturned by waves. Those that were able to accommodate themselves to this topsy-turvy existence, by taking food in directly through the mouth, survived, and their podia gradually specialized as sucking feet. Such a form as this, when once its covering-plates had atrophied, would be a starfish without more ado (fig. 12, B); but the sea-urchins present a more difficult problem, on which Bothriocidaris sheds no light. An Upper Silurian echinoid, however, Palaeodiscus, is believed by W.J. Sollas and W.K. Spencer to have had in its ambulacra an inner as well as an outer series of plates. If this be correct, the only change from Edrioaster, as regards the ambulacra, was that in Palaeodiscus the covering-plates could no longer open, but closed permanently over the whole groove, while the podia issued through slits between them. In more typical echinoids the covering-plates alone remained to form the ordinary ambulacral plates, while the flooring-plates disappeared, the canals and other organs remaining as before. In any case we have to admit a closure of the integument over the ciliated groove (fig. 12, D, e) just as in holothurians, since this is necessitated by anatomical evidence. The genital organs in both Asteroidea and Echinoidea would retain the interradial position they first assumed in Edrioaster; and in Echinoidea their primitive temporary openings to the exterior were converted into definite pores, correlated with five interradially placed plates at the aboral pole. The anus also naturally moved to this superior and aboral position. In the Echinoidea the water-canals and associated structures, ending in the terminal plates, stretched right up to these genital plates; but in the Asteroidea they never reached the aboral surface, so that the terminals have always been separated from the aboral pole by a number of plates.

Fig. 12.

-Diagrammatic sections across the ambulacra of A, C,

Pelmatozoa

, and B, D,

Eleutherozoa

, placed in the same position for comparison.

S

, Blood-spaces, of which the homology is still uncertain.

Analysis of Echinoderm Characters.—Regarding the Echinoderms as a whole in the light of the foregoing account, we may give the following analytic summary of the characters that distinguish them from other coelomate animals:—

They live in salt or brackish water; a primitive bilateral symmetry is still manifest in the right and left divisions of the coelom; the middle coelomic cavities are primitively transformed into two hydrocoels communicating with the exterior indirectly through a duct or ducts of the anterior coelom; stereom, composed of crystalline carbonate of lime, is, with few exceptions, deposited by special amoebocytes in the meshes of a mesodermal stroma, chiefly in the integument; reproductive cells are derived from the endothelium, apparently of the anterior coelom; total segmentation of the ovum produces a coeloblastula and gastrula by invagination; mesenchyme is formed in the segmentation cavity by migration of cells, chiefly from the hypoblast. Known Echinoderms show the following features, imagined to be due to an ancestral pelmatozoic stage:—Increase in the coelomic cavities of the left side, and atrophy of those on the right; the dextral coil of the gut, recognizable in all classes, though often obscured; an incomplete secondary bilateralism about the plane including the main axis and the water-pore or its successor, the madreporite, often obscured by one or other of various tertiary bilateralisms; the change of the hydrocoel into a circumoral, arcuate or ring canal; development through a free-swimming, bilaterally symmetrical, ciliated larva, of which in many cases only a portion is transformed into the adult Echinoderm (where care of the brood has secondarily arisen, this larva is not developed). All living, and most extinct, Echinoderms show the following features, almost certainly due to an ancestral pelmatozoic stage:—An incomplete radial symmetry, of which five is usually the dominant number, is superimposed on the secondary bilateralism, owing to the outgrowth from the mouth region of one unpaired and two paired ciliated grooves; these have a floor of nervous epithelium, and are accompanied by subjacent radial canals from the water-ring, giving off lateral podia and thus forming ambulacra, and by a perihaemal system of canals apparently growing out from coelomic cavities. All living Echinoderms have a lacunar, haemal system of diverse origin; this, the ambulacral system, and the coelomic cavities, contain a fluid holding albumen in solution and carrying numerous amoebocytes, which are developed in special lymph-glands and are capable of wandering through all tissues. The Echinoderms may be divided into seven classes, whose probable relations are thus indicated:—

Brief systematic accounts of these classes follow:—

Grade A. PELMATOZOA.—Echinoderma with the viscera enclosed in a calcified and plated theca, of which the oral surface is uppermost, and which is usually attached, either temporarily or permanently, by the aboral surface. Food brought to the mouth by a subvective system of ciliated grooves, radiating from the mouth either between the plates of the theca (endothecal), or over the theca (epithecal), or along processes from the theca (exothecal: arms, pinnules, &c.), or, in part, and as a secondary development, below the theca (hypothecal). Anus usually in the upper or oral half of the theca, and never aboral. An aborally-placed motor nerve-centre gives off branches to the stroma connecting the various plates of the theca and of its brachial, anal and columnar extensions, and thus co-ordinates the movements of the whole skeleton. The circumoesophageal water-ring communicates indirectly with the exterior; the podia, when present, are respiratory, not locomotor, in function.

Class I. Cystidea.—Pelmatozoa in which radial polymeric symmetry of the theca is developed either not at all or not in complete correlation with the radial symmetry of the ambulacra (such as obtains in Blastoidea and Crinoidea); in which extensions of the food-grooves are exothecal or epithecal or both combined, but neither endothecal nor pierced by podia (as in some Edrioasteroidea) All Palaeozoic.

This class shows much greater diversity of organization than any other, and the classifications proposed by recent writers, such as E. Haeckel, O. Jaekel and F.A. Bather, start from such different points of view that no discussion of them can be attempted here. Following the narrative given above, we recognize a primitive group—Amphoridea—represented by Aristocystis (fig. 8). From this are derived the orders Diploporita (fig. 9) and Rhombifera (fig. 10) and the class Edrioasteroidea, all which have already been described as steps in the evolution of the phylum. But there were also side-branches leading nowhere, and therefore placed in separate orders—Aporita and Carpoidea.

Order 1. Amphoridea.—Radial symmetry has affected neither food-grooves nor thecal plates; nor, probably, nerves, ambulacral vessels, nor gonads. Canals or folds when present in the stereom are irregular. Families: Aristocystidae (fig. 8); Eocystidae.

Order 2. Carpoidea.—Theca compressed in the oro-anal plane and a bilateral symmetry thus induced, affecting the food-grooves and, usually, the thecal plates and stem. Food-grooves in part epithecal and may be continued on one or two exothecal processes. No pores or folds in the stereom. Families: Anomalocystidae, Dendrocystidae. These correspond to Jaekel’s Carpoidea Heterostelea; he also includes, as Eustelea, our Comarocystidae and Malocystidae.

Order 3. Rhombifera.—Radial symmetry affects the food-grooves and, in the more advanced families, the thecal plates; probably also the nerves and ambulacral vessels, but not the gonads. The food-grooves are exothecal, i.e. are stretched out from the theca on jointed skeletal processes (brachioles). These either are close to the mouth or are removed from it upon a series of ambulacral or sub-ambulacral plates not derived immediately from thecal plates, or are separated from the oral centre by hypothecal passages passing beneath terminal plates. The stereom and stroma become arranged in folds and strands at right angles to the sutures of the thecal plates; in higher forms the stereom-folds are in part specialized as pectini-rhombs. Families: Echinosphaeridae; Comarocystidae; Macrocystellidae; Tiaracrinidae; Malocystidae; Glyptocystidae, with sub-famm. Echinoencrininae, Callocystinae, Glyptocystinae, of which examples are Cheirocrinus (fig. 10) and Cystoblastus from which Jaekel deduces the blastoids; Caryocrinidae.

Order 4. Aporita.—Pentamerous symmetry affects the food-grooves and thecal plates; probably also the nerves and ambulacral vessels, but not the gonads. Food-grooves exothecal and circumoral. The stereom shows no trace of canals, folds, rhombs or diplopores. Family: Cryptocrinidae.

Order 5. Diploporita.—Radial symmetry affects the food-grooves, and by degrees the thecal plates connected therewith, but not the interradial thecal plates; probably also the nerves and ambulacral vessels, but not the gonads. The food-grooves are epithecal, i.e. are extended over the thecal plates themselves without intermediate flooring; they are also prolonged on exothecal brachioles, which line the epithecal grooves. The stereom of the thecal plates may be thrown into folds, but the mesostroma does not so much tend to lie in strands traversing the sutures, nor are pectini-rhombs or pore-rhombs developed; diplopores are always present in the mesostereom, but often restricted to definite tracts or plates, especially in higher forms. Families: Sphaeronidae; Glyptosphaeridae, e.g. Fungocystis (fig. 9); Protocrinidae; Mesocystidae; Gomphocystidae.

The Protocrinidae lead up to Proteroblastus, in which the theca is ovoid, sometimes prolonged into a stem, the plates differentiated into (a) smooth, irregular, depressed interambulacrals, (b) transversely elongate brachioliferous adambulacrals, to which the diplopores, which lie at right angles to the main food-groove, are confined. This leads almost without a break to the Protoblastoidea.

Class II. Blastoidea.—Pelmatozoa in which five (by atrophy four) epithecal ciliated grooves, lying on a lancet-shaped plate (? always), radiate from a central peristome between five interradial deltoid plates, and are edged by alternating side-plates bearing brachioles, to which side-branches pass from the grooves. Grooves and peristome protected by small plates, which can open over the grooves. The generative organs and coelom probably did not send extensions along the rays into the brachioles; but apparently nerves from the aboral centre, after passing through the thecal plates, met in a circumoral ring, from which branches passed into the plate under each main food-groove, and thence supplied the brachioles. The thecal plates, however irregular in some species, always show defined basals and a distinct plate (“radial”) at the end of each ambulacrum; they are in all cases so far affected by pentamerous symmetry that their sutures never cross the ambulacra. All Palaeozoic.

Division A. Protoblastoidea.—Blastoidea without interambulacral groups of hydrospire-folds hanging into the thecal cavity. Families: Asteroblastidae, Blastoidocrinidae. The former might be placed with Diploporita, were it not for a greater intimacy of correlation between ambulacral and thecal structures than is found in Cystidea as here defined. They form a link between the Protocrinidae and—

Fig. 13.

—A Eublastoid,

Pentremites

.

Division B. Eublastoidea.—Blastoidea in which the thecal plates have assumed a definite number and position in 3 circlets, as follows: 3 basals, 2 large and 1 small; 5 radials, often fork-shaped, forming a closed circlet; 5 deltoids, interradial in position, supported on the shoulders or processes of the radials, and often surrounding the peristome with their oral ends. The stereom of the radials and deltoids on each side of the ambulacra is thrown into folds, running across the radio-deltoid suture, and hanging down into the thecal cavity as respiratory organs (hydrospires).

These are the forms to which the name Blastoidea is usually restricted. They have been divided into Regulares and Irregulares, but it seems possible to group them according to three series or lines of descent, thus:—

Series a. Codonoblastida.—Families: Codasteridae, Pentremitidae (fig. 13).

Series b. Troostoblastida.—Families: Troostocrinidae, Eleutherocrinidae.

Series c. Granatoblastida.—Families: Nucleocrinidae, Orbitremitidae, Pentephyllidae, Zygocrinidae.

Class III. Crinoidea.—Pelmatozoa in which epithecal extensions of the food-grooves, ambulacrals, superficial oral nervous system, blood-vascular and water-vascular systems, coelom and genital system are continued exothecally upon jointed outgrowths of the abactinal thecal plates (brachia), carrying with them extensions of the abactinal nerve-system. The number of these processes is primitively and normally five, but may become less by atrophy. The brachia rise from a corresponding number of thecal plates, “radials (RR).” Below these is always a circlet, or traces of a circlet, of plates alternating with the radials, i.e. interradial, and called “basals (BB).” Through all modifications, which are numerous and vastly divergent, these elements persist. A circlet of radially situate infrabasals (IBB) may also be present. Below BB or IBB there follows a stem, which, however, may be atrophied or totally lost (see fig. 1).

The classification here adopted is that of F.A. Bather (1899), which departs from that of Wachsmuth and Springer mainly in the separation of forms with infrabasals or traces thereof from those in which basals only are present. These two series also differ from each other in the relations of the abactinal nerve-system. O. Jaekel (1894) has divided the crinoids into the orders Cladocrinoidea and Pentacrinoidea, the former being the Camerata of Wachsmuth and Springer (Monocyclica Camerata, Adunata and Dicyclica Camerata of the present classification), and the latter comprising all the rest, in which the arms are either free or only loosely incorporated in the dorsal cup. In minor points there is fair agreement between the American, German and British authors. The families are extinct, except when the contrary is stated.

Sub-class I. Monocyclica.—Crinoidea in which the base consists of BB only, the aboral prolongations of the chambered organ being interradial; new columnals are introduced at the extreme proximal end of the stem.

Order 1. Monocyclica Inadunata.—Monocyclica in which the dorsal cup is confined to the patina and occasional intercalated anals; such ambulacrals or interambulacrals as enter the tegmen remain supra-tegminal and not rigidly united. Families: Hybocrinidae, Stephanocrinidae, Heterocrinidae, Calceocrinidae, Pisocrinidae, Zophocrinidae, Haplocrinidae, Allagecrinidae, Symbathocrinidae, Belemnocrinidae, Plicatocrinidae, Hyocrinidae (recent), Saccocomidae.

Order 2. Adunata.—Monocyclica with dorsal cup primitively confined to the patina and an occasional single anal; tegmen solid; portions of the proximal brachials and their ambulacrals tend to be rigidly incorporated in the theca. Arms fork once to thrice, and bear pinnules on each or on every other brachial. BB fused to 3, 2 or 1. (Eucladocrinus and Acrocrinidae offer peculiar exceptions to this diagnosis.) Families: Platycrinidae, Hexacrinidae, Acrocrinidae.

Order 3. Monocyclica Camerata.—Monocyclica in which the first, and often the succeeding, orders of brachials are incorporated by interbrachials in the dorsal cup, while the corresponding ambulacrals are either incorporated in, or pressed below, the tegmen by interambulacrals; all thecal plates united by suture, somewhat loose in the earliest forms, but speedily becoming close, and producing a rigid theca; mouth and tegminal food-grooves closed; arms pinnulate.

Sub-order i. Melocrinoidea.—RR in contact all round; first brachial usually quadrangular. Families: Glyptocrinidae, Melocrinidae, Patelliocrinidae, Clonocrinidae, Eucalyptocrinidae, Dolatocrinidae.

Sub-order ii. Batocrinoidea.—RR separated by a heptagonal anal; first brachial usually quadrangular. Families: Tanaocrinidae, Xenocrinidae, Carpocrinidae, Barrandeocrinidae, Coelocrinidae, Batocrinidae, Periechocrinidae.

Sub-order iii. Actinocrinoidea.—RR separated by a hexagonal anal; first brachial usually hexagonal. Families: Actinocrinidae, Amphoracrinidae.

Sub-class II. Dicyclica.—Crinoidea in which the base consists of BB and IBB, the latter being liable to atrophy or fusion with the proximale, but the aboral prolongations of the chambered organ are always radial; new columnals may or may not be introduced at the proximal end of the stem.

Order 1. Dicyclica Inadunata.—Dicyclica in which the dorsal cup primitively is confined to the patina and occasional intercalated anals, and no other plates ever occur between RR (Grade: Distincta); Br may be incorporated in the cup, with or without iBr, but never rigidly, and their corresponding ambulacrals remain supra-tegminal (Grade: Articulata); new columnals are introduced at the extreme proximal end of the stem.

Sub-order i. Cyathocrinoidea.—Tegmen stout with conspicuous orals. Families: Carabocrinidae, Palaeocrinidae. Euspirocrinidae, Sphaerocrinidae, Cyathocrinidae, Petalocrinidae, Crotalocrinidae, Codiacrinidae, Cupressocrinidae, Gasterocomidae.

Sub-order ii. Dendrocrinoidea.—Tegmen thin, flexible, with inconspicuous orals. Families: Dendrocrinidae, Botryocrinidae, Lophocrinidae, Scaphiocrinidae, Scytalecrinidae, Graphiocrinidae, Cromyocrinidae, Encrinidae (preceding families are Distincta; the rest Articulata), Pentacrinidae, including the recent Isocrinus (fig. 14), Uintacrinidae, Marsupitidae, Bathycrinidae (recent).

Order 2. Flexibilia.—Dicyclica in which proximal brachials are incorporated in the dorsal cup, either by their own sides, or by interbrachials, or by a finely plated skin, but never rigidly; plates may occur between RR. Tegmen flexible, with distinct ambulacrals and numerous small interambulacrals; mouth and food-grooves remain supra-tegminal and open. Top columnal a persistent proximale, often fusing with IBB, which are frequently atrophied in the adult.

All the Palaeozoic representatives have non-pinnulate arms, while the Mesozoic and later forms have them pinnulate. There are other points of difference, so that it is not certain whether the latter really descended from the former. But assuming such a relationship we arrange them in two grades.

Grade a. Impinnata.—Families: Ichthyocrinidae, Sagenocrinidae, and Taxocrinidae, perhaps capable of further division.

Grade b. Pinnata.—Families: Apiocrinidae with the recent Calamocrinus, Bourgueticrinidae with recent Rhizocrinus, Antedonidae, Atelecrinidae, Actinometridae, Thaumatocrinidae (these four recent families include free-moving forms with atrophied stem, probably derived from different ancestors), Eugeniacrinidae, Holopodidae (recent), Eudesicrinidae.

Fig. 14.

—A living Pentacrinid,

Isocrinus asteria

; the first specimen found, after Guettard’s figure published in 1761.

Order 3. Dicyclica Camerata.—Dicyclica in which the first, and usually the second, orders of brachials are incorporated in the dorsal cup by interbrachials, at first loosely, but afterwards by close suture. IBB always the primitive 5. An anal plate always rests on the posterior basal; mouth and tegminal food-grooves closed; arms pinnulate. Families: Reteocrinidae, Dimerocrinidae, Lampterocrinidae, Rhodocrinidae, Cleiocrinidae.

Class IV. Edrioasteroidea.—Pelmatozoa in which the theca is composed of an indefinite number of irregular plates, some of which are variously differentiated in different genera; with no subvective skeletal appendages, but with central mouth, from which there radiate through the theca five unbranched ambulacra, composed of a double series of alternating plates (covering-plates), sometimes supported by an outer series of larger alternating plates (side-plates or flooring-plates). In some forms at least, pores between (not through) the ambulacral elements, or between them and the thecal plates, seem to have permitted the passage of extensions from the perradial water-vessels. Anus in posterior interradius, on oral surface, closed by valvular pyramid. Hydropore (usually, if not always, present) between mouth and anus. Families: Agelacrinidae, Cyathocystidae, Edrioasteridae, Steganoblastidae. All Palaeozoic. The structure and importance of Edrioaster have been discussed above (figs. 11, 12).

Grade B. ELEUTHEROZOA—Echinoderma in which the theca, which may be but slightly or not at all calcified, is not attached by any portion of its surface, but is usually placed with the oral surface downwards or in the direction of forward locomotion. Food is not conveyed by a subvective system of ciliated grooves, but is taken in directly by the mouth. The anus when present is typically aboral, and approaches the mouth only in a few specialized forms. The aboral nervous system, if indeed it be present at all, is very slightly developed. The circumoesophageal water-ring may lose its connexion with the exterior medium; the podia (absent only in some exceptional forms) may be locomotor, respiratory or sensory in function, but usually are locomotor tube-feet.

The classes of the Eleutherozoa probably arose independently from different branches of the Pelmatozoan stem. The precise relation is not clear, but the order in which they are here placed is believed to be from the more primitive to the more specialized.

Class I. Holothurioidea.—Eleutherozoa normally elongate along the oro-anal axis, which axis and the dorsal hydropore lie in the sagittal plane of a secondary bilateral symmetry. The calcareous skeleton, which may be entirely absent, is usually in the form of minute spicules, sometimes of small irregular plates with no trace of a calycinal or apical system; to these is added a ring of pieces radiately arranged round the oesophagus. Ambulacral appendages take the form of: (1) circumoral tentacles, (2) sucking-feet, (3) papillae; of these (1) alone is always present. The gonads are not radiately disposed.

The comparative anatomy of living forms, combined with the evolutionary hypothesis sketched above, suggests that the early holothurians possessed the following characters: subvective grooves entirely closed; 5 radial canals, proceeding from the water-ring, gave off branches furnished with ampullae to the podia on each side of them, the 10 anterior podia being changed into cylindrical tentacles; the transverse muscles of the body-wall formed a circular layer, probably interrupted at the radii (though Ludwig believes the contrary); longitudinal muscles as paired radial bands, without those special retractors for withdrawing the anterior part of the body which occur in many recent forms; a hydropore connected with the water-ring by a canal in the dorsal mesentery; a gonopore behind the hydropore connected by a single duct with a bunch of genital pouches on each side of the mesentery; gut dextrally coiled, with a simple blood-vascular system, and with an enlargement at the anus for respiration, this eventually producing branched caeca called “respiratory trees”; skeleton reduced to a ring of 5 radial and 5 interradial plates round the gullet, and small plates, with a hexagonally meshed network, dispersed through the integument. Such a form gave rise to descendants differing inter se as regards the suppression of the radial canals and of the podia, the form of the tentacles, and the development of respiratory trees. These anatomical facts are represented in the following classification by H. Ludwig:—

Order 1. Actinopoda.—Radial canals supplying tentacles and podia.

A. With respiratory trees.

 

   (

a

) With podia

{

Fam. 1, Holothuriidae.

Fam. 4, Cucumariidae.

Fam. 5, Molpadiidae.

   (

b

) Without podia

 

B. Without respiratory trees.

 

   (

a

) With podia

Fam. 2, Elpidiidae.

   (

b

) Without podia

Fam. 3, Pelagothuriidae.

Order 2. Paractinopoda.—Neither radial canals nor podia. Tentacles supplied from circular canal. Fam. Synaptidae.

Fig. 15.

—An Aspidochirote Holothurian of the family

Holothuriidae

, showing the mouth surrounded by tentacles, the anus at the other end of the body, and three of the rows of podia.

It is admitted, however, that this scheme does not represent the probable descent or relationship of the families. Consideration of the views of Ludwig himself, of H. Östergren, and especially of R. Perrier, suggests the following as a more natural if less obvious arrangement.

Order 1. Aspidochirota.—Tentacles more or less peltate; calcareous ring when present simple and radially symmetrical; no retractors; stone-canal often opens to exterior; genital tubes sometimes restricted to left side in consequence of altered position of gut (Fig. 15.) Families: Elpidiidae (deep-sea forms, with sub-famm. Synallactinae, Deimatinae, Elpidiinae, Psychropotinae), Holothuriidae (shallow water), Pelagothuriidae (pelagic).

Order 2. Dendrochirota.—Tentacles simple or branched, never peltate; calcareous ring well developed, often bilaterally symmetrical; retractor muscles usually present; stone-canal opens internally; genital tubes in right and left tufts.

Sub-order i. Apoda.—No tube-feet or papillae, but tentacular ampullae more or less developed. Mostly burrowers. Families: Synaptidae (sub-famm. Synaptinae, Chirodotinae, Myriotrochinae), Molpadiidae.

Sub-order ii. Eupoda.—Tube-feet present, but tentacular ampullae rudimentary or absent. Families: Cucumariidae (climbers and crawlers), Rhopalodinidae (burrowers).

Class II. Stelliformia (= Asteroidea sensu lato).—Eleutherozoa with a depressed stellate body composed of a central disk, whence radiate five or more rays; this radiate symmetry affects all the systems of organs, including the genital. The radial water-vessels lie in grooves on the ventral side of flooring-plates (usually called “ambulacrals”); they and their podia are limited to the oral surface of the body and their extremities are separated from the apical plates by a stretch of dorsal integument containing skeletal elements; the opening of the water-vascular system (madreporite) is not connected with a definite apical plate or system of plates.

The starfish, brittle-stars and their allies (see Starfish) have for the last fifty years usually been divided into two classes—Asteroidea and Ophiuroidea, each equivalent to the Holothurioidea or Echinoidea. Recently, however, some authors, e.g. Gregory, have attempted to show that these classes cannot be distinguished. It is true that some specialized forms, such as the Brisingidae among starfish, Astrophiura and Ophioteresis among ophiurans, contravene the usual diagnoses; but this neither obscures their systematic position, nor does it alter the fact that since early Palaeozoic times these two great groups of stellate echinoderms have evolved along separate lines. If then we place these groups in a single class, it is not on account of a few anomalous genera, but because the characters set forth above sharply distinguish them from all other echinoderms, and because we have good reason to believe that the ophiurans did not arise independently but have descended from primitive starfish. For that class Bell’s name Stelliformia is selected since it avoids both confusion and barbarism.

Sub-class I. Asterida.—Stelliformia in which the ambulacral groove always remains open and the podia serve as tube-feet (fig. 12, B); the rays as a rule pass gradually into the disk, and contain both genital glands and caecal extensions of the digestive system; an anus usually present; respiration is by tubular extensions from the body-cavity (papulae); skeletal appendages, in addition to small spines, are either small grasping organs (pedicellariae), or clumped spines (paxillae), or branched spines bearing a membrane.

No existing classification of the Asterida is satisfactory even for the recent forms, still less when the older fossils are considered. A separation of the latter as Palasterida, because of their alternating ambulacrals, from the recent Euasterida with opposite ambulacrals, is now discarded and an attempt made to arrange the Palasterida in divisions originally established for Euasterida. Those divisions fall under three schemes. C. Viguier has divided the starfish into: Astéries ambulacraires, with plates of ambulacral origin prominent in the mouth-skeleton, pedicellariae stalked, and straight or crossed, podial pores usually quadriserial; Astéries adambulacraires, with adambulacrals prominent in the mouth-skeleton, pedicellariae sessile, and forcipiform or valvular, podial pores usually biserial. Perrier, at first laying greater stress on the nature of the pedicellariae and afterwards on the form of the mouth-skeleton, has gradually perfected a scheme of five orders: (1) Forcipulata, with pedicellariae stalked, and straight or crossed; (2) Spinulosa, with pedicellariae sessile and forcipiform; (3) Velata, with membraniferous spines; (4) Paxillosa, pedicellariae represented by an ossicle of the test and the spines covering it, the whole forming a paxilla; (5) Valvata or Granulosa, with pedicellariae sessile and valvular or salt-cellar shaped. A more widely accepted scheme is that of W.P. Sladen, who divided the Euasterida into two orders; (1) Phanerozonia, with marginals large and highly developed, the supero-marginals and infero-marginals contiguous, with papulae confined to the dorsal surface, with ambulacrals well spaced and usually broad, adambulacrals prominent in the mouth-skeleton, with pedicellariae sessile; (2) Cryptozonia, with marginals inconspicuous and somewhat atrophied in the adult, the supero-marginals separated from the infero-marginals by intercalated plates, with papulae distributed over the whole body, with ambulacrals crowded and narrow, either ambulacrals or adambulacrals prominent in the mouth-skeleton, with pedicellariae stalked or sessile.

We give here a list of the families separated into Sladen’s orders and grouped under Perrier’s divisions, extinct families being marked †.

Fig. 16.

—Section across the arm-skeleton of a Phanerozonate Asterid,

Astropecten

.

a, Ambulacral plates.

b, Adambulacral plates.

c and d, Inferior and superior lateral plates.

e, Dorsal plates with paxillae. Certain supra-ambulacral plates, which also exist, are not shown.

1. Phanerozonia.—Unclassed Famm., † Palaeasteridae, † Palasterinidae, † Taeniasteridae, † Aspidosomatidae. Paxillosa, Luidiidae, Astropectinidae (fig. 16), Archasteridae restr. Verrill, Porcellanasteridae, Chaetasteridae. Valvata, Benthopectinidae, Goniopectinidae, Plutonasteridae, Odontasteridae, Pentagonasteridae, Antheneidae, Pentacerotidae, Gymnasteriidae. Spinulosa, Poraniidae, Asterinidae.

2. Cryptozonia.—Unclassed Famm., † Sturtzasteridae (= Palaeocomidae Greg.), † Lepidasteridae, † Tropidasteridae. Valvata, Linckiidae restr. Perr. Spinulosa, Echinasteridae, Solasteridae (fig. 17), Korethrasteridae. Velata, † Palasteriscidae, Pterasteridae, Pythonasteridae, Myxasteridae. Forcipulata, Stichasteridae, Zoroasteridae (fig. 3, D), Heliasteridae, Pedicellasteridae, Asteriidae, Brisingidae.

Sub-class II. Ophiurida.—Stelliformia in which the ambulacral groove, though open in the oldest forms, soon becomes closed, while the podia cease to serve as tube-feet; the rays as a rule spring abruptly from the disk and contain neither genital glands nor digestive caeca; no anus; respiration may be through clefts at the bases of the rays, but not by papulae; skeletal appendages confined to spines, usually of simple structure.

Fig. 17.

—A Cryptozonate Asterid,

Solaster papposus

, from the upper or dorsal surface.

There is as yet no satisfactory classification of the Ophiurida into orders expressing lines of descent; even as regards families, leading writers are at variance. The following scheme is based on the attempts of E. Haeckel, F.J. Bell, J.W. Gregory, B. Stürtz, J.O.E. Perrier, and A.E. Verrill. Extinct families marked †.

Grade A. Palophiurae.—Ambulacrals not yet forming complete vertebrae; plates of disk not yet specialized into mouth, radial or genital shields.

Stage a. Allostichia (= Lysophiurae).—Ambulacrals alternating and unfused, groove uncovered by ventral arm-plates. Families: † Protasteridae, † Protophiuridae.

Stage b. Zygostichia.—Ambulacrals opposite and, except in Ophiurinidae, fused; ventral arm-plates developed in some. Families: † Ophiurinidae, † Lapworthuridae, † Furcasteridae, † Palastropectinidae, † Eoluididae, † Palaeophiomyxidae.

Grade B. Colophiurae.—Ambulacral pairs fused to form vertebrae with definite articular surfaces; mouth, radial and genital shields developed, though not all need be present in any one form.

Fig. 18.

—A vertebral arm-ossicle (fused ambulacrals) of a Zygophiuran,

Ophiolepis

.

A, Proximal joint-face.

B, Distal joint-face.

c, Ventral groove, where lies the water-vessel, from which branches pass through the ossicle, emerging as podia at e and e.

Order 1. Streptophiurae.—Rays simple and capable of coiling, since the vertebrae articulate by a ball-and-socket joint; arm-plates incompletely developed. Families: † Onychasteridae, Ophiohelidae, Ophioscolecidae, Ophiomyxidae, Hemieuryalidae, Astrophiuridae; unclassified genera, e.g. Ophioteresis, Ophiosciasma, Ophiogeron.

Order 2. Zygophiurae.—Rays simple and prevented from coiling by processes on the vertebral joints (fig. 18); dorsal, ventral and lateral arm-plates present.

Sub-order i. Brachyophiurae.—Spines short, simple, pointing towards the end of the arm. Families: Pectinuridae (= Ophiodermatidae), Ophiolepididae.

Sub-order ii. Nectophiurae.—Spines may be variously elaborated and are set more at right angles to the arm-axis. Families: Amphiuridae, Ophiacanthidae, Ophiocomidae, Ophiothrichidae.

Order 3. Cladophiurae (= Euryalae). Rays simple or branched, capable of coiling, since the vertebrae articulate by surfaces of hour-glass shape; ventral arm-plates, and often the others, much reduced; spines reduced or absent. Families: Euryalidae, Gorgonocephalidae, Astrochelidae, Astroschemidae, Astronycidae.

The Silurian genera Eucladia and Euthemon have the rays greatly reduced and merged in the disk, so that the ambulacrals are unseen. There are a few large dorsal, lateral and ventral arm-plates, and at the angles of the latter emerge huge podia with a granular or plated skin. There are five prominent mouth-shields and a separate madreporite on the ventral surface. These genera attained the Colophiuran grade in respect of external plating, but it is unlikely that they or their ancestors had acquired even the Streptophiuran type of vertebra. Sollas has separated them as an order Ophiocistia.

Class III. Echinoidea.—Eleutherozoa with a test of roughly circular, subpentagonal or elliptical outline, spheroidal, domed or flattened, of primary pentameric symmetry affecting all systems of organs except the gut. The radial water-vessels lie within the test through which their podia pass (fig. 12, D); the ambulacra thus formed are continuous from the peristome to the apical system of plates; the hydropore is connected with a definite plate of that system, and thus marks a secondary bilateral symmetry. An anus is present either within the apical system (endocyclic, fig. 3, A and B), or outside it in an interradius (exocyclic, fig. 19, 7), thus initiating yet another bilateral symmetry. Skeletal appendages are spines (radioles), pedicellariae, and, in some forms, minute sense-organs called sphaeridia.

The echinoids or sea-archins (see Sea-Urchin) may be grouped under the following orders, here named in the sequence of their appearance in the rocks.

Order 1. Bothriocidaroida.—Ambulacrals simple, each with two pores vertically superposed, 2 columns to each ambulacrum; interambulacrals multi-tuberculate, in 1 column, none passing on to or resorbed by the peristome; mouth central, jaws unknown, no external gills or sphaeridia; anus aboral, endocyclic. Sole genus Bothriocidaris (fig. 5), Ordovician.

Order 2. Melonitoida.—Ambulacrals simple, each with two pores horizontally juxtaposed, in 2 to 18 columns; interambulacrals granulate with occasional tubercles, in 3 to 11 columns, not more than one row passing on to the peristome; mouth central, with jaws, no external gills or sphaeridia; anus aboral, endocyclic. Families: Palechinidae (fig. 19, 1), Melonitidae and Lepidesthidae, Silurian to Carboniferous.

Order 3. Cystocidaroida.—Ambulacrals simple, each with one or two pores, which sometimes pass between rather than through the plates, in 2 columns; interambulacrals, uni- or multi-tuberculate, in numerous (say 10 or more) columns, none passing on to peristome; mouth central with jaws, no external gills or sphaeridia; position of anus doubtful, acyclic, i.e. no apical system so far as known. Include only Echinocystis, Palaeodiscus and (?) Myriastiches, all Upper Silurian.

Order 4. Cidaroida.—Ambulacrals simple, each with two pores horizontally juxtaposed, in 2 columns; interambulacrals unituberculate, in 2 to 11 columns, some rows may pass on to the peristome; mouth central, with jaws, no external gills or sphaeridia; anus aboral, endocyclic. Families: Lepidocentridae and Archaeocidaridae (fig. 19, 2), Devonian and Carboniferous; Cidaridae (fig. 19, 3, 4). Permian to present; Diplocidaridae and Tiarechinidae, Mesozoic.

Order 5. Diademoida.—Ambulacrals generally compound, with two pores obliquely juxtaposed, in 2 columns as in all subsequent orders; interambulacrals usually with large radioles surrounded by smaller ones, as in Cidaroida, in 2 columns as in all subsequent orders, only one plate resorbed; mouth central, with jaws and external gills, sphaeridia present; anus aboral endocyclic. J.W. Gregory divides this into four suborders, each representing a distinct evolutionary series; i. Calycina, Saleniidae (fig. 19, 5) and Acrosaleniidae; ii. Arbacina, Hemicidaridae and Arbaciidae; iii. Diademina, Orthopsidae, Diadematidae, Diplopodiidae, Pedinidae, Cyphosomatidae, and Echinothuridae; iv. Echinina, Temnopleuridae, Triplechinidae, Strongylocentrotidae and Echinometridae. The order is Triassic to Recent.

Fig. 19.

—Denuded tests of some fossil Echinoids.

1, Palaeechinus; Carboniferous.

2, A plate and radiole of Archaeocidaris;
Carboniferous.

3, A radiole of Cidaris; Jurassic.

4, Hemicidaris; Mid. Jurassic.

5, Salenia; Cretaceous.

6, Dysaster; Jurassic.

7, Enallaster: Cretaceous.

8, Catopygus; Cretaceous.

Order 6. Holectypoida.—Ambulacrals sometimes compound, with one or two pores to a plate, some dorsal podia begin to assume respiratory function; interambulacrals multi-tuberculate, none resorbed; mouth central, with jaws weak or wanting, with external gills and sphaeridia; anus exocyclic. Families: Pygasteridae, Discoidiidae, Galeritidae, Conoclypeidae; Jurassic to Recent.

Order 7. Spatangoida.—Ambulacrals simple, with two pores juxtaposed, dorsal podia respiratory; interambulacrals bearing numerous small spines, none resorbed; mouth central or shifted forwards, with no jaws or external gills, sphaeridia numerous; anus exocyclic. As the mouth moves forward and the anus downward, the posterior interambulacrals between them are enlarged and strengthened so as to form a sternum. The order may therefore be divided into: (i.) Asternata, Famm. Echinoneidae, Nucleolitidae and Cassidulidae (fig. 19, 8); (ii.) Sternata, Famm. Collyritidae (fig. 19, 6), Echinocorytidae, Spatangidae (fig. 19, 7), Palaeostomidae, and Pourtalesiidae; Jurassic to Recent.

Order 8. Clypeastroida.—Ambulacrals simple or compound, with two pores juxtaposed, dorsal podia respiratory; interambulacrals multi-tuberculate, none resorbed; mouth central with flattened unequal jaws, reduced external gills, and few sphaeridia; anus exocyclic. Families: Fibulariidae, Laganidae, Scutellidae, Clypeastridae; Cretaceous to Recent.

Fig. 20.

The probable relationship of these orders is shown in the annexed table. Here the Cystocidaroida occupy an isolated position. It is, however, quite possible that Echinocystis may some day be referred to the Cidaroida, and Palaeodiscus to the Melonitoida. This would leave the Echinoid scheme remarkably simple, with the Melonitoida and Cidaroida as divergent branches from an ancestor like Bothriocidaris; but while the former branch soon decayed, the latter continues to flourish at the present day. To take the Echinoidea now living, and to divide them into Endocyclica and Exocyclica, Branchiate and Abranchiate, Gnathostomata and Atelostomata, is easy and convenient; or again to distinguish as Palechinoidea those pre-Jurassic genera which do not conform to the fixed type of twenty vertical columns found in the later Euechinoidea, is to express an interesting fact; but all such divisions obscure the true relationships, and the corresponding terms should be recognized as descriptive rather than classificatory.

Authorities.—In addition to the works referred to at the beginning of the article, the following deal with the general subject: Bather, Gregory and Goodrich, “Echinoderma,” in Lankester’s Treatise on Zoology (London, 1900); F.J. Bell, Catalogue of the British Echinoderms in the British Museum (London, 1892); P.H. Carpenter, “Notes on Echinoderm Morphology,” Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., 1878-1887; Y. Delage and E. Hérouard, Traité de zoologie concrète, iii., Échinodermes (Paris, 1904); A. Lang, Text-Book of Comparative Anatomy, transl., part ii. (London, 1896); Ludwig and Hamann, “Echinodermen,” in Bronn’s Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreichs (Leipzig, 1889), in progress; M. Neumayr, Die Stämme des Tierreiches (Wien, 1889); P.B. and C.F. Sarasin, “Über die Anatomie der Echinothuriden und die Phylogenie der Echinodermen,” Ergebnisse naturw. Forsch. auf Ceylon, Bd. i Heft 3 (Wiesbaden, 1888); R. Semon, “Die Homologien innerhalb des Echinodermenstammes,” Morph. Jahrb. (1889); W.P. Sladen, “Homologies of the Primary Larval Plates in the Test of Brachiate Echinoderms,” Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., 1884; K.A. v. Zittel, Handbuch der ... Paläozoologie, i. pp. 308-560 (München, 1879); also Grundzüge, translated and revised by C.R. Eastman as Text-Book of Palaeontology (New York and London, 1899). The larger treatises here mentioned contain very full bibliographies, and a complete analytical index to the annual literature of the Echinoderma has for many years been published in the Zoological Record (London).

(F. A. B.)

1 Sometimes called “Echinodermata,” a Greek name meaning “sea-urchin-skins,” which was invented by J.T. Klein (1734) to denote the tests of the Echini or sea-urchins; its later use for the animals themselves, or for the whole phylum, was an error in both history and etymology.

ECHINUS (Gr. for “hedge-hog” or “sea-urchin”), in architecture, the convex moulding which supports the abacus of the Doric column. The term is sometimes given to the ovolo of the Ionic capital, especially when curved with the egg-and-tongue enrichment. The origin of this use of the word in architecture, which comes down from ancient times, is uncertain.

ECHIUROIDEA (Gr. ἔχις, adder, and οὐρά, tail), the zoological name for a small group of marine animals which show in their larval life-history a certain degree of segmentation, and are therefore grouped by some authorities as Annelids. Formerly, together with the Sipunculoidea and Priapuloidea, they made up the class Gephyrea, but on the ground that they retain in the adult a large preoral lobe (the proboscis), that they have anal vesicles, that their anus is terminal, that setae are found, and finally that they are segmented in the larval stage, they have been removed from the class, which by the proposed further separation of the Priapuloidea on account of their unique renal and reproductive organs, has practically ceased to exist.

Fig. 1.

—A,

Bonellia viridis

, Rol., ♀; B,

B

.

fuliginosa

. Both natural size.

a

, grooved proboscis;

b

, mouth;

c

, ventral hooks;

d

, anus.

Echiuroids are animals of moderate size, varying roughly from one to six or seven centimetres in length, exclusive of the proboscis. This organ is capable of very considerable extension, and may attain a length in Bonellia viridis of about a metre and a half (fig. 1). It is grooved ventrally and ciliated. At its attachment to the body the groove sinks into the mouth. In Bonellia the proboscis is forked at its free end, but in the other genera it is short and unforked. The body is somewhat sausage-shaped, with the anus at the posterior extremity, surrounded in Echiurus by a single or double ring of setae. The skin is usually wrinkled, and in B. viridis, Thalassema lankesteri, Th. baronii, Hamingia arctica, and in the larva of many species, is of a lively green colour. A pair of curved bristles, formed in true setal sacs as in Chaetopoda, project from the body a short distance behind the mouth, and are moved by special muscles; they are of use in helping the animal to move slowly about, and they take a large share in the burrowing movements (C.B. Wilson, Biol. Bull., 1900), for some species tunnel in the mud and sand and form more or less permanent burrows, the walls of which are strengthened by mucus secreted from the skin. The openings of the burrows become silted up, leaving, however, a small aperture through which the proboscis is extruded. This organ carefully searches the neighbourhood for particles of food. When these are found the grooved proboscis folds its walls inwards, and the cilia pass the particles down the tube thus formed to the mouth. Echiuroids also move by extending the proboscis, which takes hold of some fixed object, and, then contracting, draws the body forwards. Recently it has been shown that Echiurus swims freely at night-time, using for locomotion both the proboscis and the contraction of the muscles of its body-wall. The motion is described as “gyratory,” and the anterior end is always carried foremost. Those species which do not burrow usually conceal themselves in crevices of the rocks or under stones, or at times in empty Mollusc or Echinid shells. They are occasionally used by fishermen for bait.

Fig. 2.

—Female

Bonellia viridis

, Rol. Opened along the left side.

a, Proboscis cut short.

b, Bristle passing through the mouth into the pharynx.

c, Coiled intestine.

d, Anal tufts or vesicles.

e, Ventral nerve cord.

f, Ovary borne on ventral vessel running parallel with e.

g, Position of anus.

h, Position of external opening of nephridium.

i, Nephridium—the line points towards, but does not reach, the internal opening.

Fig. 3.

—Adult male,

Bonellia viridis

, Rol. The original was 1.5 mm. long. The nervous system is not shown. (After Selenka.)

a, Generative pore with spermatozoa coming out.

b, Anterior blind end of intestine attached to the parenchymatous tissue by muscular strands.

c, Green wandering cells containing chlorophyll.

d, Parenchymatous connective tissue.

e, Epidermis.

i, Intestine.

j, Vas deferens.

l, Internal opening of vas deferens.

m, The left anal vesicle.

n, Spermatozoa in the body-cavity.

Anatomy (fig. 2).—A thin cuticle covers the epidermis, which contains mucus-secreting glands. Beneath the epidermis is a layer of circular muscles, then a layer of longitudinal, and finally in some cases a layer of oblique muscle-fibres. The inner face of this muscular skin is lined by a layer of epithelium. The coelomic body-cavity is spacious. It does not extend into the proboscis, which is a solid organ traversed by the nervous and vascular rings, but otherwise largely built up of muscle fibres and connective tissue. Many sense-cells lie in the epidermis. The ciliated ventral groove of the proboscis leads at its base into the simple mouth, which gives access to the thin-walled alimentary canal. This is longer than the body, and to tuck it away it is looped from side to side. The loops are supported by strands of connective tissue, which in some species are united so as to form a dorsal mesentery, whilst traces of a ventral mesentery are met with anteriorly and posteriorly (H.L. Jameson, Zool. Jahrb. Anat., 1899). The alimentary canal is divisible into fore-gut, mid-gut and hind-gut, and the first-named can be further divided into pharynx, oesophagus, gizzard and crop, mainly on histological grounds. The mid-gut is characterized by the presence of a ciliated groove, from which arises the collateral intestine or siphon, a second tube which rejoins the alimentary canal lower down. Similar collateral intestines are familiar in the Echinids and certain Polychaets (Capitellidae). The rectum receives the openings of a pair of very characteristic organs, the anal vesicles. Each consists of a branching tube, the tips of whose twigs terminate in minute ciliated funnels. The anal vesicles are thought to be excretory; whether this be so or not, they undoubtedly have some influence on the amount of fluid found in the coelom. The coelomic fluid contains as a rule both amoeboid and rounded corpuscles, and, when ripe, the products of the gonads. A closed system of vessels, usually called the vascular system, is present. There are, however, no capillaries connected with this, and it is confined to certain portions of the body. It can possess few of the functions usually associated with a vascular system, and its main use is probably to assist in the expansion of the proboscis. The system consists of the following parts:—A dorsal vessel applied to the alimentary canal is continued anteriorly into a median vessel, which traverses the proboscis to its tip. Here the vessel splits, and each half returns along the lateral edge of the proboscis; they reunite around the oesophagus and form a single ventral vessel, which lies above the ventral nerve-cord. The ventral vessel, which ends solidly behind, sends off a branch which forms a ring around the intestine and opens into the posterior extremity of the dorsal vessel. In Echiurus and Thalassema the same vessel forms a ring round a stout muscle, which connects the bases of the two ventral setae before passing to surround the intestine. Amoeboid corpuscles float in the fluid contents. The nephridia vary in number from a single one in Bonellia to three pairs in many species of Thalassema. Their external openings are ventral, and on the same level as the ciliated funnel-shaped nephrostomes. The posterior wall of the organ is produced into a long blind sac, which is lined by secretory cells. The nervous system is a single ventral cord, which starts from a circumoesophageal ring. This ring is involved in the growth of the proboscis, and is drawn out with it. Thus there is a lateral nerve near each edge of the proboscis which unites with its fellow dorsally above the oesophagus at the tip of the proboscis, and ventrally beneath the oesophagus, where they fuse to form the ventral nerve-cord. There are no specialized ganglia, but ganglion-cells are scattered uniformly along the nerve-cords. The ventral cord gives off rings, which run into the skin at regular intervals. The reproductive cells are modified coelomic cells, which lie on the ventral vessel. They escape into the coelomic fluid and there develop. When mature they leave the body through the nephridia. Bonellia and Hamingia are very interesting examples of sexual dimorphism. The female has the normal Echiuroid structure, but the male is reduced to a minute, flattened, planarian-like organism, which passes its life usually in the company of two or three others in a special recess of the nephridia of the female. Its structure may be gathered by a reference to fig. 3.

Larva.—The larva is a typical trochosphere, which, although of a temporary character, shows a distinct segmentation of the mesoblast, of the nervous system, and of the ciliated and pigmented structures in the skin, resembling that of Chaetopods. The preoral lobe persists as the proboscis. The sexes of the larvae are not determinable in the early stages, but when a certain growth has been reached in Bonellia the males seek the proboscis of the adult females, and passing into the mouth undergo there the transformation into the planarian-like parasite which is the fully-formed male. This now creeps along the body of the female and takes up its home in her nephridia.

Classification and Distribution.—The Echiuroidea consists of the following genera:—(1) Bonellia (Rol.), with four species, widely distributed, but inhabiting the temperate and warmer waters of each hemisphere. (2) Echiurus (Guérin-Méneville), with four species. This genus reaches from the Arctic waters of both hemispheres into the cooler temperate regions. (3) Hamingia (Kor. and Dan.), with one species, which has been taken in the Arctic Sea and the Hardanger Fjord. (4) Saccosoma (Kor. and Dan.) was described from a single specimen dredged about half-way between Iceland and Norway. (5) Thalassema (Gaertner, Lamarck), with twenty-one species. This genus is in the main a denizen of the warmer waters of the globe. Sixteen species are found only in tropical or subtropical seas, three species are Mediterranean (Mt. Stat. Neapel, 1899), whilst three species are from the eastern Atlantic, where the temperature is modified by the Gulf Stream (Shipley; see Willey’s Zoological Results, part iii. 1899; Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1898, 1899; and Cambridge Natural History, ii.). The following are found in the British area:—E. pallasii (Guérin-Méneville), Th. neptuni (Gaertner), and Th. lankesteri (Herdman, Q.J.M.S., 1898).

Affinities.—The occurrence of trochosphere larva and the temporary segmentation of the body have led to the belief that the Echiuroids are more nearly allied to the Annelids than to any other phylum. This view is strengthened by certain anatomical and histological resemblances to the genus Sternaspis, which in one species, S. spinosa, is said to carry a bifid proboscis resembling that of the Echiuroids.

(A. E. S.)

ECHMIADZIN, or Itsmiadsin, a monastery of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Erivan, the seat of the Catholicus or primate of the Armenian church. It is situated close to the village of Vagarshapat, in the plain of the Aras, 2840 ft. above the sea, 12 m. W. of Erivan and 40 N. of Mount Ararat. The monastery comprises a pretty extensive complex of buildings, and is surrounded by brick walls 30 ft. high, which with their loopholes and towers present the appearance of a fortress. Its architectural character has been considerably impaired by additions and alterations in modern Russian style. On the western side of the quadrangle is the residence of the primate, on the south the refectory (1730-1735), on the east the lodgings for the monks, and on the north the cells. The cathedral is a small but fine cruciform building with a Byzantine cupola at the intersection. Its foundation is ascribed to St Gregory the Illuminator in 302. Of special interest is the porch, built of red porphyry, and profusely adorned with sculptured designs somewhat of a Gothic character. The interior is decorated with Persian frescoes of flowers, birds and scroll-work. It is here that the Catholicus confers episcopal consecration by the sacred hand (relic) of St Gregory; and here every seven years he prepares with great solemnity the holy oil which is to be used throughout the churches of the Armenian communion. Outside of the main entrance are the alabaster tombs of the primates Alexander I. (1714), Alexander II. (1755), Daniel (1806) and Narses (1857), and a white marble monument, erected by the English East India Company to mark the resting-place of Sir John Macdonald Kinneir, who died at Tabriz in 1830, while on an embassy to the Persian court. The library of the monastery is a rich storehouse of Armenian literature (see Brosset’s Catalogue de la bibliothèque d’Etchmiadzin, St Petersburg, 1840). Among the more remarkable manuscripts are a copy of the gospels dating from the 10th or 11th century, and three bibles of the 13th century. A type-foundry, a printing-press and a bookbinding establishment are maintained by the monks who supply religious and educational works for their co-religionists.

To the east of the monastery is a modern college and seminary. Half a mile to the east stand the churches of St Ripsime and St Gaiana, two of the early martyrs of Armenian Christianity; the latter is the burial-place of those primates who are not deemed worthy of interment beside the cathedral. From a distance the three churches form a fairly striking group, and accordingly the Turkish name for Echmiadzin is Uch-Kilissi, or the Three Churches. The town of Vagarshapat dates from the 6th century B.C.; it takes its name from King Vagarsh (Vologaeses), who in the 2nd century A.D. chose it as his residence and surrounded it with walls. Here the apostle of Armenia, St Gregory the Illuminator, erected a church in 309 and with it the primacy was associated. In 344 Vagarshapat ceased to be the Armenian capital, and in the 5th century the patriarchal seat was removed to Dvin, and then to Ani. The monastery was founded by Narses II., who ruled 524-533; and a restoration was effected in 618. The present name of the monastery was adopted instead of Vagarshapat in the 10th century. At length in 1441 the primate George brought back the see to the original site.

(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

ECHO (Gr. ἠχώ), in Greek mythology, one of the Oreades or mountain nymphs, the personification of the acoustical phenomenon known by this name. She was beloved by Pan, but rejected his advances. Thereupon the angry god drove the shepherds of the district mad; they tore Echo in pieces, and scattered her limbs broadcast, which still retained the gift of song (Longus iii. 23). According to Ovid (Metam. iii. 356-401), Echo by her incessant talking having prevented Juno from surprising Jupiter with the Nymphs, Juno changed her into an “echo”—a being who could not speak till she was spoken to, and then could only repeat the last words of the speaker. While in this condition she fell in love with Narcissus, and in grief at her unrequited affection wasted away until nothing remained but her voice and bones, which were changed into rocks. The legends of Echo are of late, probably Alexandrian, origin, and she is first personified in Euripides.

In acoustics an “echo” is a return of sound from a reflecting surface (see Sound: Reflection).

See F. Wieseler, Die Nymphe Echo (1854), and Narkissos (1856); P. Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités.

ECHTERNACH, a town in the grand duchy of Luxemburg, on the Sûre, close to the Prussian frontier. Pop. (1905) 3484. It is the oldest town in Luxemburg, and was the centre from which the English Saint Willibrord converted the people to Christianity in the 7th century. There are the Benedictine abbey, the hospital almshouse, which is said to be the oldest hospital in Europe except the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, and the church of St Peter and St Paul. The Benedictine abbey has been greatly shorn of its original dimensions, but the basilica remains a fair monument of Romano-Gothic art. The church of St Peter and St Paul stands on an isolated mound, and for the ascent sixty steps have been built in the side, and these are well worn by the tread of numerous pilgrims who come in each succeeding year. The interior of the church is curious more than imposing, and is specially noteworthy only for its gloom. Under the altar, and below a white marble effigy of himself, lies Saint Willibrord.

Echternach is famous, however, in particular for the dancing procession held on Whit-Tuesday every year. The origin of this festival is uncertain, but it dates at least from the 13th century and was probably instituted during an outbreak of cholera. Nowadays it is an occasion of pilgrimage, among Germans and Belgians as well as Luxemburgers, for all sick persons, but especially for the epileptic and those suffering from St Vitus’ dance. The ceremony is interesting, and the Roman Catholic Church lends all its ritual to make it more imposing. The archbishop of Trier attends to represent Germany, and the bishop of Luxemburg figures for the grand duchy. There is a religious ceremony on the Prussian side of the bridge over the Sûre, and when it is over the congregation cross into the duchy to join the procession, partly religious, partly popular, through the streets of the town. The religious procession, carrying cross and banners and attended by three hundred singers, comes first, chanting St Willibrord’s hymn. Next comes a band of miscellaneous instruments playing as a rule the old German air “Adam had seven sons,” and then follow the dancers. Many of these are young and full of life and health and dance for amusement, but many others are old or feeble and dance in the hope of recovery or of escaping from some trouble, but on all alike the conditions of the dance are incumbent. There are three steps forward and two back; five steps are thus taken to make one in advance. This becomes especially trying at the flight of steps mounting to the little church where the procession ends in front of the shrine of the great saint. There are sixty steps, but it takes three hundred to reach the top for the final time. It is said that those who fall from age or weariness have to be dragged out of the way by onlookers or they would be trampled to death by the succeeding waves of dancers. The procession, although it covers a distance of less than a mile, is said to take as much as five hours in its accomplishment. In olden days the abbey was the goal of the procession, and King William I. of the Netherlands—great-grandfather of Queen Wilhelmina—changed the day from Tuesday to Sunday so that a working day should not be lost. This reform did not answer, and the ancient order was restored. Some critics see in the dancing procession of Echternach merely the survival of the spring dance of the heathen races, but at any rate it invests the little town with an interest and importance that would otherwise be lacking.

ECHUCA, a borough of the county of Rodney, Victoria, Australia, 156 m. by rail N. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 4075. It is situated on the river Murray, across which it is connected by bridge with Moama, on the New South Wales side, whence a railway runs to Deniliquin. The town is the terminus of the Murray River railway and the entrepot of the overland intercolonial trade; it has large wool stores, saw-mills, coach factories, breweries and soap-works. The rich agricultural district is noted for its vineyards.

ÉCIJA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Seville; on the Cadiz-Cordova railway and the left bank of the river Genil. Pop. (1900) 24,372. The river, thus far navigable, is here crossed by a fine old bridge; and the antiquity of the town betrays itself by the irregularity of its arrangement, by its walls and gateways, and by its numerous inscriptions and other relics. Its chief buildings include no fewer than twenty convents, mostly secularized. The principal square is surrounded with pillared porticoes, and has a fountain in the centre; and along the river bank there runs a fine promenade, planted with poplar trees and adorned with statues. From an early period the shoemakers of Écija have been in high repute throughout Spain; woollen cloth, flannel, linen and silks are also manufactured. The vicinity is fertile in corn and wine, and cotton is cultivated. The heat is so great that the spot has acquired the sobriquet of El Sarten, or the “Frying-pan” of Andalusia. Écija, called Estija by the Arabs, is the ancient Astigis, which was raised to the rank of a Roman colony with the title of Augusta Firma. According to Pliny and Pomponius Mela, who both wrote in the 1st century A.D., it was the rival of Cordova and Seville. If local tradition may be believed, it was visited by the apostle Paul, who converted his hostess Santa Xantippa; and, according to one version of his life, it was the see of the famous St Crispin (q.v.) in the 3rd century.

ECK, JOHANN MAIER (1486-1543), German theologian, the most indefatigable and important opponent of Martin Luther, was born on the 13th of November 1486 at Eck in Swabia, from which place he derived his additional surname, which he himself, after 1505, always modified into Eckius or Eccius, i.e. “of Eck.” His father, Michael Maier, was a peasant and bailiff (Amtmann) of the village. The boy’s education was undertaken by his uncle Martin Maier, parish priest at Rothenburg on the Neckar, who sent him at the age of twelve to the university of Heidelberg, and subsequently to those of Tübingen, Cologne and Freiburg in the Breisgau. His academic career was so rapidly successful that at the age of twenty-four he was already doctor and professor of theology. During this period he was distinguished for his opposition to the scholastic philosophy; and, though he did not go to all lengths with the “modernists” (Moderni) of his day, his first work—Logices exercitamenta (1507)—was distinctly on their side. This attitude brought him into conflict with the senate of the university, a conflict which Eck’s masterful temper, increased by an extreme self-confidence perhaps natural in one so young and so successful, did not serve to allay. His position in Freiburg becoming intolerable, he accepted in 1510 an invitation from the duke of Bavaria to fill the theological chair at Ingolstadt, where he was destined for thirty years to exercise a profound influence as teacher and vice-chancellor (Prokanzler).

A ducal commission, appointed to find a means for ending the interminable strife between the rival academic parties, entrusted Eck with the preparation of fresh commentaries on Aristotle and Petrus Hispanus. He had a marvellous capacity for work, and between 1516 and 1520, in addition to all his other duties, he published commentaries on the Summulae of Petrus Hispanus, and on the Dialectics, Physics and lesser scientific works of Aristotle, which became the text-books of the university. During these early years Eck was still reckoned among the “modernists,” and his commentaries are inspired with much of the scientific spirit of the New Learning. His aim, however, had been to find a via media between the old and new; his temper was essentially conservative, his imagination held captive by the splendid traditions of the medieval church, and he had no sympathy with the revolutionary attitude of the Reformers. Personal ambition, too, a desire to be conspicuous in the great world of affairs, may have helped to throw him into public opposition to Luther. He had won laurels in a public disputation at Augsburg in 1514, when he had defended the lawfulness of putting out capital at interest; again at Bologna in 1515, on the same subject and on the question of predestination; and these triumphs had been repeated at Vienna in 1516. By these successes he gained the patronage of the Fuggers, and found himself fairly launched as the recognized apologist of the established order in church and state. Distinguished humanists might sneer at him as “a garrulous sophist”; but from this time his ambition was not only to be the greatest scientific authority in Germany but also the champion of the papacy and of the traditional church order. The first-fruits of this new resolve were a quite gratuitous attack on his old friend, the distinguished humanist and jurist Ulrich Zasius (1461-1536), for a doctrine proclaimed ten years before, and a simultaneous assault on Erasmus’s Annotationes in Novum Testamentum.

It is, however, by his controversy with Luther and the other reformers that Eck is best remembered. Luther, who had some personal acquaintance with Eck, sent him in 1517 copies of his celebrated 95 theses. Eck made no public reply; but in 1518 he circulated, privately at first, his Obelisci, in which Luther was branded as a Hussite. Luther entrusted his defence to Carlstadt, who, besides answering the insinuations of Eck in 400 distinct theses, declared his readiness to meet him in a public disputation. The challenge was accepted, and the disputation took place at Leipzig in June and July 1519. On June 27 and 28 and on July 1 and 3 Eck disputed with Carlstadt on the subjects of grace, free will and good works, ably defending the Roman Semipelagian standpoint. From July 4 to 14 he engaged with Luther on the absolute supremacy of the papacy, purgatory, penance, &c., showing a brilliant display of patristic and conciliar learning against the reformer’s appeals to Scripture. The arbitrators declined to give a verdict, but the general impression was that victory rested with Eck. He did, indeed, succeed in making Luther admit that there was some truth in the Hussite opinions and declare himself against the pope, but this success only embittered his animosity against his opponents, and from that time his whole efforts were devoted to Luther’s overthrow. He induced the universities of Cologne and Louvain to condemn the reformer’s writings, but failed to enlist the German princes, and in January 1520 went to Rome to obtain strict regulations against those whom he called “Lutherans.” He was created a protonotary apostolic, and in July returned to Germany, as papal nuncio, with the celebrated bull Exsurge Domine directed against Luther’s writings. He now believed himself in a position to crush not only the Lutheran heretics, but also his humanist critics. The effect of the publication of the bull, however, soon undeceived him. Bishops, universities and humanists were at one in denunciation of the outrage; and as for the attitude of the people, Eck was glad to escape from Saxony with a whole skin. In his wrath he appealed to force, and his Epistola ad Carolum V. (February 18, 1521) called on the emperor to take measures against Luther, a demand soon to be responded to in the edict of Worms. In 1521 and 1522 Eck was again in Rome, reporting on the results of his nunciature. On his return from his second visit he was the prime mover in the promulgation of the Bavarian religious edict of 1522, which practically established the senate of the university of Ingolstadt as a tribunal of the Inquisition, and led to years of persecution. In return for this action of the duke, who had at first been opposed to the policy of repression, Eck obtained for him, during a third visit to Rome in 1523, valuable ecclesiastical concessions. Meanwhile he continued unabated in his zeal against the reformers, publishing eight considerable works between 1522 and 1526.

His controversial ardour was, indeed, somewhat damped by Luther’s refusal to answer his arguments, and with a view to earning fresh laurels he turned his attention to Switzerland and the Zwinglians. At Baden-in-Aargau in May and June 1526 a public disputation on the doctrine of transubstantiation was held, in which Eck and Thomas Murner were pitted against Johann Oecolampadius. Though Eck claimed the victory in argument, the only result was to strengthen the Swiss in their memorial view of the Lord’s Supper, and so to diverge them further from Luther. At the Augsburg diet in 1530 Eck was charged by Charles V. to draw up, in concert with twenty other theologians, the refutation of the Protestant Confession, but was obliged to rewrite it five times before it suited the emperor. He was at the colloquy of Worms in 1540 and at the diet of Regensburg (Ratisbon) in 1541. At Worms he showed some signs of a willingness to compromise, but at Regensburg his old violence reasserted itself in opposing all efforts at reconciliation and persuading the Catholic princes to reject the Interim.

Eck died at Ingolstadt on the 10th of February 1543, fighting to the last and worn out before his time. He was undoubtedly the most conspicuous champion produced by the old religion in the age of the Reformation, but his great gifts were marred by greater faults. His vast learning was the result of a powerful memory and unwearied industry, and he lacked the creative imagination necessary to mould this material into new forms. He was a powerful debater, but his victories were those of a dialectician rather than a convincing reasoner, and in him depth of insight and conviction were ill replaced by the controversial violence characteristic of the age. Moreover, even after discounting the bias of his enemies, there is evidence to prove that his championship of the Church was not the outcome of his zeal for Christianity; for he was notoriously drunken, unchaste, avaricious and almost insanely ambitious. His chief work was De primatu Petri (1519); his Enchiridion locorum communium adversus Lutherum ran through 46 editions between 1525 and 1576. In 1530-1535 he published a collection of his writings against Luther, Opera contra Ludderum, in 4 vols.

See T. Wiedemann, Dr Johann Eck (Regensburg, 1865).

ECKERMANN, JOHANN PETER (1792-1854), German poet and author, best known owing to his association with Goethe, was born at Winsen in Hanover on the 21st of September 1792, of humble parentage, and was brought up in penury and privation. After serving as a volunteer in the War of Liberation (1813-1814), he obtained a secretarial appointment under the war department at Hanover. In 1817, although twenty-five years of age, he was enabled to attend the gymnasium of Hanover and afterwards the university of Göttingen, which, however, after one year’s residence as a student of law, he left in 1822. His acquaintance with Goethe began in the following year, when he sent to him the manuscript of his Beiträge zur Poesie (1823). Soon afterwards he went to Weimar, where he supported himself as a private tutor. For several years he also instructed the son of the grand duke. In 1830 he travelled in Italy with Goethe’s son. In 1838 he was given the title of grand-ducal councillor and appointed librarian to the grand-duchess. Eckermann is chiefly remembered for his important contributions to the knowledge of the great poet contained in his Conversations with Goethe (1836-1848). To Eckermann Goethe entrusted the publication of his Nachgelassene Schriften (posthumous works) (1832-1833). He was also joint-editor with Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer (1774-1845) of the complete edition of Goethe’s works in 40 vols. (1839-1840). He died at Weimar on the 3rd of December 1854.

Eckermann’s Gespräche mit Goethe (vols. i. and ii. 1836; vol. iii. 1848; 7th ed., Leipzig, 1899; best edition by L. Geiger, Leipzig, 1902) have been translated into almost all the European languages, not excepting Turkish. (English translations by Margaret Fuller, Boston, 1839, and John Oxenford, London, 1850.) Besides this work and the Beiträge zur Poesie, Eckermann published a volume of poems (Gedichte, 1838), which are of little value. See J.P. Eckermanns Nachlass, herausgegeben von F. Tewes, vol. i. (1905), and an article by R.M. Meyer in the Goethe-Jahrbuch, xvii. (1896).

ECKERNFÖRDE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, on a fjord of the Baltic, 20 m. by rail N.W. from Kiel. Pop. (1905) 7088. It has a good harbour, fishing, trade in agricultural products, and manufactures of tobacco, salt and iron goods. There are a technical school of building and a Protestant teachers’ seminary. Eckernförde is mentioned as far back as 1197. It was taken by Christian IV. of Denmark in 1628 from the Imperial troops. In 1813 the Danes were defeated here, while in 1849 the harbour was the scene of the blowing up of the Danish line-of-battle ship “Christian VIII.” and of the surrender of the frigate “Gefion” after an engagement with the German shore batteries. The place lost most of its trade after the union with Germany in 1864, and suffered severely from a sea-flood in 1872. In the immediate neighbourhood is the village of Borby, much frequented for sea-bathing.

ECKERSBERG, KRISTOFFER (1783-1853), Danish painter, was born in south Jutland. He became successively the pupil of Nikolaj Abildgaard and of J.L. David. From 1810 to 1813 he lived at Paris under the direction of the latter, and then proceeded, as an independent artist, to Rome, where he worked until 1816 in close fellowship with Thorwaldsen. His paintings from this period—“The Spartan Boy,” “Bacchus and Ariadne” and “Ulysses”—testify to the influence of the great sculptor over the art of Eckersberg. Returning to Copenhagen, he found himself easily able to take the first place among the Danish painters of his time, and his portraits especially were in extreme popularity. It is claimed for Eckersberg by the native critics that “he created a Danish colour,” that is to say, he was the first painter who threw off conventional tones and the pseudo-classical landscape, in exchange for the clear atmosphere and natural outlines of Danish scenery. But Denmark has no heroic landscape, and Eckersberg in losing the golden commonplaces scarcely succeeds in being delightful. His landscapes, however, are pure and true, while in his figure-pieces he is almost invariably conventional and old-fashioned. He was president of the Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Charlottenburg.

ECKHART,1 JOHANNES [”Meister Eckhart”] (?1260-?1327), German philosopher, the first of the great speculative mystics. Extremely little is known of his life; the date and place of his birth are equally uncertain. According to some accounts, he was a native of Strassburg, with which he was afterwards closely connected; according to others, he was born in Saxony, or at Hochheim near Gotha. Trithemius, one of the best authorities, speaks of him merely as “Teutonicus.” 1260 has frequently been given as the date of his birth; it was in all probability some years earlier, for we know that he was advanced in age at the time of his death, about 1327. He appears to have entered the Dominican order, and to have acted for some time as professor at one of the colleges in Paris. His reputation for learning was very high, and in 1302 he was summoned to Rome by Boniface VIII., to assist in the controversy then being carried on with Philip of France. From Boniface he received the degree of doctor. In 1304 he became provincial of his order for Saxony, and in 1307 was vicar-general for Bohemia. In both provinces he was distinguished for his practical reforms and for his power in preaching. Towards 1325 we hear of him as preaching with great effect at Cologne, where he gathered round him a numerous band of followers. Before this time, and in all probability at Strassburg, where he appears to have been for some years, he had come in contact with the Beghards (see Beguines) and Brethren of the Free Spirit, whose fundamental notions he may, indeed, be said to have systematized and expounded in the highest form to which they could attain. In 1327 the opponents of the Beghards laid hold of certain propositions contained in Eckhart’s works, and he was summoned before the Inquisition at Cologne. The history of this accusation is by no means clear. Eckhart appears, however, to have made a conditional recantation—that is, he professed to disavow whatever in his writings could be shown to be erroneous. Further appeal, perhaps at his own request, was made to Pope John XXII., and in 1329 a bill was published condemning certain propositions extracted from Eckhart’s works. But before its publication Eckhart was dead. The exact date of his death is unknown. Of his writings, several of which are enumerated by Trithemius, there remain only the sermons and a few tractates. Till the middle of the 19th century the majority of these were attributed to Johann Tauler, and it is only from Pfeiffer’s careful edition (Deutsche Mystiker d. XIV. Jahrhunderts, vol. ii., 1857) that one has been able to gather a true idea of Eckhart’s activity. From his works it is evident that he was deeply learned in all the philosophy of the time. He was a thorough Aristotelian, but by preference appears to have been drawn towards the mystical writings of the Neoplatonists and the pseudo-Dionysius. His style is unsystematic, brief and abounding in symbolical expression. His manner of thinking is clear, calm and logical, and he has certainly given the most complete exposition of what may be called Christian pantheism.

Eckhart has been called the first of the speculative mystics. In his theories the element of mystical speculation for the first time comes to the front as all-important. By its means the church doctrines are made intelligible to the many, and from it the church dogmas receive their true significance. It was but natural that he should diverge more and more widely from the traditional doctrine, so that at length the relation between his teaching and that of the church appeared to be one of opposition rather than of reconciliation. Eckhart is in truth the first who attempted with perfect freedom and logical consistency to give a speculative basis to religious doctrines. The two most important points in his, as in all mystical theories, are first, his doctrine of the divine nature, and second, his explanation of the relation between God and human thought. (See Mysticism.)

For the German writings of Eckhart see F. Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mystiker, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1857), and F. Jostes, Meister Eckhart und seine Jünger (Freiburg, 1895); for the Latin works, H. Denifle in Archiv f. Litt- und Kirchengeschichte d. Mittelalters, ii. (1886), pp. 417-652, and v. (1889), pp. 349-364; German translations by G. Landauer, Meister Eckarts mystische Schriften (Berlin, 1903), and Büttner (Leipzig, 1903 foll.). See also A. Lasson, Meister Eckhart der Mystiker (1868); H.L. Martensen, Meister Eckhart (1842); J. Bach, Meister Eckhart der Vater der deutschen Speculation (1864); C. Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation (1842); W. Preger, Geschichte d. deutschen Mystik, i. (1874); and “Ein neuer Traktat M. Eckharts und d. Grundzüge der Eckhartischen Theosophie” in Zeitschr. f. hist. Phil. (1864), pp. 163 foll.; A. Bullinger, Das Christenthum im Lichte der deutschen Philos. (Dillingen, 1895); H. Delacroix, Le Mysticisme spéculatif en Allemagne au XIVe siècle (Paris, 1900); E. Kramm, Meister Eckhart im Lichte der Denifleschen Funde (Bonn, 1889); R. Langenberg, Über die Verhältnisse Meister Eckharts zur niederdeutschen Mystik (Göttingen, 1896); W. Schopff, Meister Eckhart (Leipzig, 1889); A. Jundt, Hist. du panthéisme populaire au moyen âge (Paris, 1875); art. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (S.M. Deutsch); R.M. Jones, Mystical Religion (1909).

1 The name is variously spelled: Eckehart, Eckart, Eckhard.

ECKHEL, JOSEPH HILARIUS (1737-1798), Austrian numismatist, was born at Enzersfeld in lower Austria, 1737. His father was farm-steward to Count Zinzendorf, and he received his early education at the Jesuits’ College, Vienna, where at the age of fourteen he was admitted into the order. He devoted himself to antiquities and numismatics. After being engaged as professor of poetry and rhetoric, first at Steyer and afterwards at Vienna, he was appointed in 1772 keeper of the cabinet of coins at the Jesuits’ College, and in the same year he went to Italy for the purpose of personal inspection and study of antiquities and coins. At Florence he was employed to arrange the collection of the grand duke of Tuscany; and the first-fruits of his study of this and other collections appeared in his Numi veteres anecdoti, published in 1775. On the dissolution of the order of Jesuits in 1773, Eckhel was appointed by the empress Maria Theresa professor of antiquities and numismatics at the university of Vienna, and this post he held for twenty-four years. He was in the following year made keeper of the imperial cabinet of coins, and in 1779 appeared his Catalogus Vindobonensis numorum veterum. Eckhel’s great work is the Doctrina numorum veterum, in 8 vols., the first of which was published in 1792, and the last in 1798. The author’s rich learning, comprehensive grasp of his subject, admirable order and precision of statement in this masterpiece drew from Heyne enthusiastic praise, and the acknowledgment that Eckhel, as the Coryphaeus of numismatists, had, out of the mass of previously loose and confused facts, constituted a true science. A volume of Addenda, prepared by Steinbüchel from Eckhel’s papers after his death, was published in 1826. Among his other works are—Choix de pierres gravées du Cabinet Impérial des Antiques (1788), a useful school-book on coins entitled Kurzgefasste Anfangsgrunde zur alten Numismatik (1787), of which a French version enlarged by Jacob appeared in 1825, &c. Eckhel died at Vienna on the 16th of May 1798.

ECKMÜHL, or Eggmühl, a village of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Grosse Laaber, 13 m. S.E. of Regensburg by the railway to Munich. It is famous as the scene of a battle fought here on the 22nd of April 1809, between the French, Bavarians and Wurttembergers under Napoleon, and the Austrians under the Archduke Charles, which resulted in the defeat of the latter. Napoleon, in recognition of Marshal Davout’s great share in the victory, conferred on him the title of prince of Eckmuhl. For an account of this action and those of Abensberg and Landshut see Napoleonic Campaigns.

ECLECTICISM (from Gr. ἐκλέγω, I select), a term used specially in philosophy and theology for a composite system of thought made up of views borrowed from various other systems. Where the characteristic doctrines of a philosophy are not thus merely adopted, but are the modified products of a blending of the systems from which it takes its rise, the philosophy is not properly eclectic. Eclecticism always tends to spring up after a period of vigorous constructive speculation, especially in the later stages of a controversy between thinkers of pre-eminent ability. Their respective followers, and more especially cultured laymen, lacking the capacity for original work, seeking for a solution in some kind of compromise, and possibly failing to grasp the essentials of the controversy, take refuge in a combination of those elements in the opposing systems which seem to afford a sound practical theory. Since these combinations have often been as illogical as facile, “eclecticism” has generally acquired a somewhat contemptuous significance. At the same time, the essence of eclecticism is the refusal to follow blindly one set of formulae and conventions, coupled with a determination to recognize and select from all sources those elements which are good or true in the abstract, or in practical affairs most useful ad hoc. Theoretically, therefore, eclecticism is a perfectly sound method, and the contemptuous significance which the word has acquired is due partly to the fact that many eclectics have been intellectual trimmers, sceptics or dilettanti, and partly to mere partisanship. On the other hand, eclecticism in the sphere of abstract thought is open to this main objection that, in so far as every philosophic system is, at least in theory, an integral whole, the combination of principles from hostile theories must result in an incoherent patchwork. Thus it might be argued that there can be no logical combination of elements from Christian ethics, with its divine sanction, and purely intuitional or evolutionary ethical theories, where the sanction is essentially different in quality. It is in practical affairs that the eclectic or undogmatic spirit is most valuable, and also least dangerous.

In the 2nd century B.C. a remarkable tendency toward eclecticism began to manifest itself. The longing to arrive at the one explanation of all things, which had inspired the older philosophers, became less earnest; the belief, indeed, that any such explanation was attainable began to fail. Thus men came to adopt from all systems the doctrines which best pleased them. In Panaetius we find one of the earliest examples of the modification of Stoicism by the eclectic spirit; about the same time the same spirit displayed itself among the Peripatetics. In Rome philosophy never became more than a secondary pursuit; naturally, therefore, the Roman thinkers were for the most part eclectic. Of this tendency Cicero is the most striking illustration—his philosophical works consisting of an aggregation, with little or no blending, of doctrines borrowed from Stoicism, Peripateticism, and the scepticism of the Middle Academy.

In the last stage of Greek philosophy the eclectic spirit produced remarkable results outside the philosophies of those properly called eclectics. Thinkers chose their doctrines from many sources—from the venerated teaching of Aristotle and Plato, from that of the Pythagoreans and of the Stoics, from the old Greek mythology, and from the Jewish and other Oriental systems. Yet it must be observed that Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and the other systems which are grouped under the name Alexandrian, were not truly eclectic, consisting, as they did, not of a mere syncretism of Greek and Oriental thought, but of a mutual modification of the two. It is true that several of the Neoplatonists professed to accept all the teaching both of Plato and of Aristotle, whereas, in fact, they arbitrarily interpreted Aristotle so as to make him agree with Plato, and Plato so as to make his teachings consistent with the Oriental doctrines which they had adopted, in the same manner as the schoolmen attempted to reconcile Aristotle with the doctrines of the church. Among the early Christians, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Synesius were eclectics in philosophy.

The eclectics of modern philosophy are too numerous to name. Of Italian philosophers the eclectics form a large proportion. Among the German we may mention Wolf and his followers, as well as Mendelssohn, J.A. Eberhard, Ernst Platner, and to some extent Schelling, whom, however, it would be incorrect to describe as merely an eclectic. In the first place, his speculations were largely original; and in the second place, it is not so much that his views of any time were borrowed from a number of philosophers, as that his thinking was influenced first by one philosopher, then by another.

In the 19th century the term “eclectic” came to be applied specially to a number of French philosophers who differed considerably from one another. Of these the earliest were Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, who was mainly a follower of Thomas Reid, and Maine de Biran; but the name is still more appropriately given to the school of which the most distinguished members are Victor Cousin, Théodore Jouffroy, J.P. Damiron, Barthélemy St Hilaire, C.F.M. de Rémusat, Adolphe Garnier and Ravaisson-Mollien. Cousin, whose views varied considerably at different periods of his life, not only adopted freely what pleased him in the doctrines of Pierre Laromiguière, Royer-Collard and Maine de Biran, of Kant, Schelling and Hegel, and of the ancient philosophies, but expressly maintained that the eclectic is the only method now open to the philosopher, whose function thus resolves itself into critical selection and nothing more. “Each system,” he asserted, “is not false, but incomplete, and in reuniting all incomplete systems, we should have a complete philosophy, adequate to the totality of consciousness.” This assumes that every philosophical truth is already contained somewhere in the existing systems. If, however, as it would surely be rash to deny, there still remains philosophical truth undiscovered, but discoverable by human intelligence, it is evident that eclecticism is not the only philosophy. Eclecticism gained great popularity, and, partly owing to Cousin’s position as minister of public instruction, became the authorized system in the chief seats of learning in France, where it has given a most remarkable impulse to the study of the history of philosophy.

ECLIPSE (Gr. ἔκλειψις, falling out of place, failing), the complete or partial obscuration of one heavenly body by the shadow of another, or of the disk of the sun by the interposition of the moon; then called an eclipse of the sun. Eclipses are of three classes: those of the sun, as just defined; those of the moon, produced by its passage through the shadow of the earth, and those of the satellites of other planets, produced by their passage through the shadow of their primary. Jupiter (q.v.) is the only planet of whose satellites the eclipses can be observed, unless under very rare circumstances.

The geometrical conditions of an eclipse of the sun or moon are shown in fig. 1, which represents the earth E as casting its shadow towards C, and the moon M between the earth and sun as throwing its shadow towards some part of the earth and eclipsing the sun. The dark conical regions are those within which the sun is entirely hidden from sight. This portion of the shadow is called the umbra. Around the umbra is an enveloping shaded cone with its vertices directly towards the sun. To an observer within this region the sun is partly hidden from view. As the apparent path of the moon may pass to the north or south of the line joining the earth and sun, the axis of its shadow may pass to the north or south of the earth, and not meet it at all. An eclipse of the sun is called central when the shadow axis strikes any part of the earth; partial when only the penumbra falls upon the earth. It is evident that an eclipse can be seen as central only at those points of the earth’s surface over which the axis of the shadow passes.

Fig. 2. Fig. 3.

A central eclipse is total when the umbra actually reaches the earth; annular when it does not. These two cases are shown in figs. 2 and 3. In the first of these the sun is entirely hidden within the region uu′. In fig. 3 within the region aa’ the apparent diameter of the sun is slightly greater than that of the moon, and at the moment of greatest eclipse a narrow ring of sunlight is seen surrounding the dark body of the moon.

We shall treat the subject in the following sections:—

I. Phenomena of Eclipses of the Sun and conclusions derived from their observation.

II. Eclipses of the Moon.

III. The Laws and Cycles of recurrences of Eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

IV. Chronological list of remarkable eclipses of the Sun, past and future, to the end of the 20th century.

V. Description of the methods of computing eclipses.

I. Phenomena of Eclipses of the Sun.

While an eclipse of the sun, whether partial, annular or total, is in progress, no striking phenomena are to be noted until, in the case of total eclipses, the moment of the total phase approaches. It will, however, be noticed that as the moon advances on the solar disk the sharply defined and ragged edge of the moon’s disk contrasts strongly with the soft and uniform outline of the sun’s limb. As the total phase approaches, the phenomenon known as shadow bands may sometimes be seen. These consist of seeming vague and rapidly moving wave-like alternations of light and shade flitting over any white surface illuminated by the sun’s rays immediately before and after the total phase. They are probably due to a flickering of the light from the thin crescent, produced by the undulations of the air, in the same way that the twinkling of the stars is produced. The rapid progressive motion sometimes assigned to them may be regarded as the natural result of an optical illusion. A few seconds before the commencement of the total phase the red light of the chromosphere becomes visible, and will be seen most distinctly as continuations of the solar crescent at its two ends. Owing to the inequalities of the lunar surface, the diminution of the solar crescent does not go on with perfect uniformity, but, just before the last moment, what remains of it is generally broken up into separate portions of light, which, magnified and diffused by the irradiation of the telescope, present the phenomenon long celebrated under the name of “Baily’s beads.” These were so called because minutely and vividly described by Francis Baily as he observed them during the annular eclipse of May 15, 1836, when he compared them to a string of bright beads, irregular in size and distance from each other. The disappearance of the last bead is commonly taken as the beginning of totality. An arc of the chromosphere will then be visible for a few seconds at and on each side of the point of disappearance, the length and duration of which will depend on the apparent diameter of the moon as compared with that of the sun, being greater in length and longer seen as the excess of diameter of the moon is less. The red prominences may now generally be seen here and there around the whole disk of the moon, while the effulgence of soft light called the corona surrounds it on all sides. Before the invention of the spectroscope, observers of total eclipses could do little more than describe in detail the varying phenomena presented by the prominences and the corona. Drawings of the latter showed it to have the appearance of rays surrounding the dark disk of the moon, quite similar to the glory depicted by the old painters around the head of a saint. The discrepancies between the outlines as thus pictured, not only at different times, but by different observers at the same time and place, are such as to show that little reliance can be placed on the details represented by hand drawings.

During the eclipse of July 8, 1842, the shadow of the moon passed from Perpignan, France, through Milan and Vienna, over Russia and Central Asia, to the Pacific Ocean. Very detailed physical observations were made, but none which need be specially mentioned in the present connexion.

The eclipse of July 28, 1851, was total in Scandinavia and Russia. It was observed in the former region by many astronomers, among them Sir George B. Airy and W.R. Dawes. It was specially noteworthy for the first attempt to photograph such a phenomenon. A daguerreotype clearly showing the protuberances was taken by Berkowski at the Observatory of Königsberg. An attempt by G.A. Majocchi to daguerreotype the corona was a failure. Photographs of the eclipse of July 18, 1860, were taken by Padre Angelo Secchi and Warren De La Rue, which showed the prominences well, and proved that they were progressively obscured by the edge of the advancing moon. It was thus shown that they were solar appendages, and did not belong to the moon, as had sometimes been supposed. The corona was barely visible on De La Rue’s plates, but those of Secchi showed it, with its rifts and the bases of the tall coronal wings, to about 15’ from the sun’s limb. The sketches taken at this eclipse proved that the corona extended in some regions 1° from the sun’s limb. As the sensitiveness of photographic plates has increased, they have gradually been wholly relied upon for information respecting the corona, so that at the present time naked-eye descriptions are regarded as of little or no scientific value. Owing to the great contrast between the brilliancy of the coronal light at its base and its increasing faintness as it extends farther from the sun, no one photograph will bring out all the corona. An exposure of one or two seconds is ample to show the details of inner corona to the best advantage, while longer exposures give greater extent of the brighter portions. The most extended streamers are very little brighter than the sky, and must be photographed with long exposures.

The first application of the spectroscope to the phenomenon was made during the total solar eclipse of August 18, 1868, by P.J.C. Janssen and other observers in India. By them was made the capital discovery that the red solar prominences give a spectrum of bright lines, and are therefore immense masses of incandescent gases, chiefly hydrogen and the vapours of calcium and helium. Janssen also found that this bright-line spectrum could be followed after the eclipse was over, and, in fact, could be observed at any time when the air was sufficiently transparent. By one of those remarkable coincidences which frequently occur in the history of science, this last discovery was made independently by Sir Norman Lockyer in England before the news of Janssen’s success had reached him. It was afterwards found that, by giving great dispersing power to the spectroscope, the prominences could be observed in a wide slit, in their true form. At this eclipse the spectrum of the corona was also observed, and was supposed to be continuous, while polariscopic observation by Lieutenant Campbell showed it polarized in planes passing through the sun’s centre. The conclusion from these two observations was that the light was composed, at least in great part, of reflected sunlight.

At the total eclipse of August 7, 1869, it was independently found by Professors C.A. Young of Princeton and W. Harkness of Washington that the continuous spectrum of the corona was crossed by a bright line in the green, which was long supposed to be coincident with 1474 of Kirchhoff’s scale. This coincidence is, however, now found not to be real, and the line cannot be identified with that of any terrestrial substance. The name “coronium” has therefore been given to the supposed gas which forms it. It is now known that 1474 is a double line, one component of which is produced by iron, while the other is of unknown origin. The wave-length of the principal component is 5317, while that of the coronal line was found at the eclipses of 1896 and 1898 to be 5303.

The eclipse of December 28, 1870, passed over the south-western corner of Spain, Gibraltar, Oran and Sicily. It is memorable for the discovery by Young of the “reversing layer” of the solar atmosphere. This term is now applied to a shallow stratum resting immediately upon the photosphere, the absorption of which produces the principal dark lines of the solar spectrum, but which, being incandescent, gives a spectrum of bright lines by its own light when the light of the sun is cut off. This layer is much thinner than the chromosphere, and may be considered to form the base of the latter. Owing to its thinness, the phenomenon of the reversed bright lines is almost instantaneous in its nature, and can be observed for a period exceeding one or two seconds only near the edge of the shadow-path, where the moon advances but little beyond the solar limb. Near the central line it is little more than a flash, thus giving rise to the term “flash-spectrum.” Young also at this eclipse saw bright hydrogen lines when his spectroscope was directed to the centre of the dark disk of the moon. This can only be attributed to the reflection of the light of the prominences and chromosphere from the atmosphere between us and the moon. The coronal light as observed in the spectroscope may thus be regarded as a mixture of true coronal light with chromospheric light reflected from the air, and it is therefore probable that the H and K (calcium) lines of the coronal spectrum are not true coronal lines, but chromospheric.

At the eclipse of December 12, 1871, visible in India and Australia, Janssen observed, as he supposed, some of the dark lines of the solar spectrum in the continuous spectrum of the corona, especially D, b and G. This would show that an important part of the coronal light is due to reflected sunshine. This feature of the spectrum, however, is doubtful in the most recent photographs under the best conditions. At this eclipse the remarkable observation was also made by Colonel John Herschel and Colonel J.F. Tennant that the characteristic line of the coronal spectrum is as bright in the dark rifts of the corona as elsewhere. This would show that the gas coronium does not form the streamers of the corona, but is spherical in form and distributed uniformly about the sun. Photographs were also taken on wet plates by a party in Java and by the parties of Lord Lindsay (at Baikul, India) and of Colonel Tennant (at Dodabetta). The Baikul and Dodabetta photographs were of small size (moon’s diameter = 3⁄10 in.), but of excellent definition. A searching study was made of them by A. C Ranyard and W.H. Wesley (Memoirs R.A.S. vol. xli., 1879), and for the first time a satisfactory representation of the corona was obtained. The drawings in the volume quoted show its polar rays, wings, interlacing filaments and rifts as they are now known to be, as well as the forms and details of the prominences.

The eclipse of April 16, 1874, was observed in South Africa by E.J. Stone, H.M. astronomer at the Cape, who traced the coronal line about 30’ (430,000 m.) from the sun’s limb. The visual corona was seen to extend in places some 90′ from the limb.

The eclipse of April 6, 1875, was observed in Siam by Sir J. Norman Lockyer and Professor Arthur Schuster. Their photographs showed the calcium and hydrogen lines in the prominence spectrum.

The eclipse of July 29, 1878, was observed by many astronomers in the United States along a line extending from Wyoming to Texas. A number of the stations were at high altitudes (up to 14,000 ft.), and the sky was generally very clear. The visible corona extended on both sides of the sun along the ecliptic for immense distances—at least twelve lunar diameters, about eleven million miles. Photographs taken by the parties of Professors A. Hall and W. Harkness gave the details of the inner corona and of the polar rays, showing the filamentous character of the corona, especially at its base in the polar regions. A photograph taken by the party of Professor E.S. Holden showed the outer corona to a distance of 50′ from the moon’s limb. The bright-line spectrum of the corona was excessively faint and, as the solar activity (measured by sun-spot frequency) was near a minimum, it was concluded that the brilliancy of the coronium line varied in the sun-spot period, a conclusion which subsequent eclipse observations seem to have verified. It is not yet certain that the other coronal spectrum lines vary in the same way.

The eclipse of May 17, 1882, was observed in Egypt. On the photographs of the corona the image of a bright comet was found, the first instance of the sort. (A faint comet was found on the plates of the Lick Observatory eclipse expedition to Chile in 1893.) The slitless spectroscope showed the green line (coronium) and D3 (helium) in the coronal spectrum.

The eclipse of May 6, 1883, was observed from a small coral atoll in the South Pacific Ocean by parties from America, England, France, Austria and Italy. A thorough search was made by Holden (with a 6 in. telescope) for an intra-Mercurial planet, without success, during an unusually long totality (5 m. 23 s.). J. Palisa also searched for such a planet. Janssen again reported the presence of dark lines in the coronal spectrum. “White” prominences were seen by P. Tacchini.

The eclipse of August 29, 1886, was observed in the West Indies. The English photographs of the corona, taken with a slitless spectroscope, show the hydrogen lines as well as K and f. Tacchini devoted his attention to the spectra of the prominences, and showed that their upper portions contained no hydrogen lines, but only the H and K lines of calcium. He also observed a very extensive “white” prominence. It was shown on the photographs of the corona, but could not be seen in the Hα line with the spectroscope. It has been suggested by Professor G.E. Hale that the colour of a “white” prominence may be due to the fact that the H and K lines (calcium) are of their normal intensity, while the less refrangible prominence lines are, from some unknown cause, comparatively faint. It is known that the intensity of such lines does, in fact, vary, though it is not yet certain that the “white” prominences are produced in this way. The subject is one demanding further observation. High prominences are generally “white” at their summits, “red” at their bases. The Harvard College Observatory photographs show the corona out to 90′ from the moon’s limb, though no detail is visible beyond 60′. W.H. Pickering made a series of photographic photometric measures of the corona, some of which are given below, together with results deduced by Holden from the eclipses of January and December 1889:—

 

August

1886.

January

1889.

December

1889.

Intrinsic actinic brilliancy of the brightest parts of the corona

0.031

0.079

0.029

   Do. of the polar rays

· ·

0.053

0.016

   Do. of the sky near the sun

0.0007

0.0050

0.0009

Ratio of intrinsic brilliancy of the brightest parts of the corona

  to that of the sky (actinic)

44 to 1

16 to 1

32 to 1

Magnitude of the faintest star shown on the eclipse negatives

· ·

2.3

· ·

The results in the first and third columns are derived from plates taken in a very humid climate, and are not very different.

The eclipse of August 19, 1887, was total in Japan and Russia, but cloudy weather prevented successful observations except in Siberia and eastern Russia.

The eclipse of January 1, 1889, was observed in California and Nevada by many American astronomers. The photographs of the corona, especially those by Charoppin and E.E. Barnard, show a wealth of detail. Those of Barnard, of the Lick Observatory party, were studied by Holden, and exhibited the fact that rays, like the “polar-rays,” extended all round the sun, instead of being confined to the polar regions only. The outer corona was registered out to 100′ from the moon’s limb on Charoppin’s negatives, to 130′ on those of Lowden and Ireland. On other plates the outline of the moon is visible projected on the corona before totality began. The spectrum of the corona showed few bright lines besides those of coronium and hydrogen.

The eclipse of December 22, 1889, was observed in Cayenne, S. America, by a party from the Lick Observatory under rather unfavourable conditions. Expeditions sent to Africa were baffled by cloudy weather. Father Stephen Joseph Perry observed at Salute Islands, French Guiana, and obtained some photographs of value. The effort cost him his life, for he died of malarial fever five days after the eclipse.

The eclipse of April 16, 1893, was observed by British and French parties in Africa and Brazil, and by Professor J.M. Schaeberle of the Lick Observatory in Chile. The Chile photographs of the corona were taken with a lens of 40 ft. focus, and are extremely fine. They show a faint comet near the sun. No great extensions to the corona were shown on any of the negatives, or seen visually, though they were specially looked for by British parties. The neighbourhood of the sun was carefully examined by G. Bigourdan without finding any planet. The spectrum of the corona was the usual one. The following lines were photographed in slitless spectroscopes, and undoubtedly belong to the corona: W. L. 3987; 4086; 4217; 4231; 4240; 4280; 4486; 5303 (the last number is the wave-length of the green coronium line). All of these have been seen in slit spectroscopes also. It is possible that two lines observed by Young in 1869, namely, W. L. (Ångstrom) 5450 and 5570, should be added to the list of undoubted coronal lines. It is not likely that helium or hydrogen or calcium vapour forms part of the corona. The wave-lengths of some 700 lines belonging to the chromosphere and prominences were determined by the British parties.

The eclipse of August 9, 1896, was total in Norway, Novaya Zemlya and Japan. The day was very unfavourable as to weather, but good photographs of the corona were obtained by Russian parties in Siberia and Lapland. Shackelton, in Novaya Zemlya, with a prismatic camera obtained a photograph of the reversing-layer at the beginning of totality. This photograph completely confirms Young’s discovery, and shows the prominent Fraunhofer lines bright, the bright lines of the chromosphere spectrum being especially conspicuous.

At the solar eclipse of January 22, 1898, the shadow of the moon traversed India from the western coast to the Himalaya. The duration of totality was about 2 m. The eclipse was very fully observed, more than 100 negatives of the corona being secured. The equatorial extension of the visible corona was short and faint, and the invisible (spectroscopic) corona was also very faint. The spectrum of the reversing-layer was successfully photographed; one set of negatives shows the polarization of one of the longest streamers of the corona, and proves the presence of dust particles reflecting solar light. The bright-line spectrum of hydrogen in the chromosphere was followed to the thirtieth point of the series, and the wave-lengths were shown to agree closely with Balmer’s formula (see Spectroscopy). The wave-length of coronium was found to be 5303 (not 5317 as previously supposed), and the brightness of the corona was measured. E.W. Maunder made the curious observation of coronal matter enveloping a prominence in the form of a hood.

Observations of the eclipse of May 28, 1900, were favoured in a remarkable degree by the absence of clouds. The photographs of the corona obtained by W.W. Campbell extended four diameters of the sun on the west side. The sun’s edge was photographed with an objective-prism spectrograph composed of two 60° prisms in front of a telescope of 2 in. aperture and 60 in. focus. A fine photograph, 6 in. long, of the bright- and dark-line spectra of the sun’s edge at the end of totality was thus obtained. It shows 600 bright lines sharply in focus besides the dark-line spectrum, to which the bright lines gave way as the sun reappeared. The coronal material radiating the green light was found to be markedly heaped up in the sun-spot regions. No dark lines were found in the spectrum of the inner corona. G.E. Hale and E.B. Frost also photographed the combined bright- and dark-line spectra of the solar cusps at the instants before and after totality. On one photograph showing no dark lines 70 bright lines could be measured between 4070 and 4340. On another were 70 bright lines between Hb and Hs. On a third were 266 bright lines between 4026 and 4381, and some dark lines. These lines show a marked dissimilarity from the solar spectrum.

(S. N.)

The eclipse of May 18, 1901, was observable in Mauritius with 3½ minutes of totality, and in Sumatra with 6½ minutes. Unfortunately there was cloudy weather in Sumatra, which at some stations prevented observations entirely and at others neutralized the advantages promised by the long duration of totality. Thus spectroscopic observations for the detection of motion of the corona, for which the long totality gave a special opportunity, failed owing to cloud; and the search for intra-Mercurial planets had only a negative result, though stars down to magnitude 8.8 were photographed on the plates. But though no particular step in advance was taken, successful records of the eclipse were obtained, which will enable comparison to be made with other eclipses and will contribute their share to the discussion of the whole series. These include photographs of the corona, showing that it was of the sun-spot minimum type, and available for measures of its brightness; photographs of the spectra of the chromosphere and corona which are of the same general character as those obtained at previous eclipses; photographs showing the polarization of the corona, available for quantitative measures of polarization at different points. Photographs of the spectrum of the outer corona taken by the Lick Observatory party show a strong Fraunhofer dark-line spectrum, consistent with the view that the light is reflected sunlight. At Mauritius there was no cloud, but the definition was poor. Successful photographs of the corona were obtained for comparison with those taken in Sumatra one and a half hours later, but nothing of great interest was revealed by the comparison.

The eclipse of August 30, 1905, offered a duration of 3½ minutes in Spain, the track running from Labrador through Spain to North Africa, and affording excellent opportunities for observers, who flocked to the central line in great numbers. Unfortunately it was cloudy in Labrador, so that the special advantages of the long line of possible stations were lost. Exceptionally good weather conditions were enjoyed in Algeria and Tunisia, and full advantage was taken of them by H.F. Newall, C. Trépied and others at Guelma, by the party from Greenwich and G. Bigourdan at Sfax. That G. Newall’s spectroscopic photographs for rotation of the corona again gave no result is a clear indication of the faintness of the corona at 3′ from the limb; but F.W. Dyson at Sfax obtained two new lines at 5536 and 5117 in the spectrum of the corona; and a very large number of photographs of the corona (including many in polarized light on several different plans), of its spectrum, and of the spectrum of the chromosphere, were obtained by the various parties, which will afford copious material for discussion. Newall also obtained a polarized spectrum of the corona. Altogether no less than eighty stations were occupied. There were English, American, Russian and German observers in Egypt; English and French in Algeria and Tunisia; English in Majorca; observers of almost all nationalities in Spain; and English and American in Labrador. In Egypt the weather was bright, though the sun was low; in Majorca and Spain there were local clouds. Consequently many observations, in addition to those in Labrador, were lost, notably the special spectroscopic observations undertaken by Evershed on the northern limit of totality, and the observations of radiation undertaken by H.L. Callendar. A search for intra-Mercurial planets was conducted on an elaborate plan, with similar batteries of telescopes, in Egypt, Spain and Labrador, by three parties from the Lick Observatory, but the examination of the plates showed nothing noteworthy. Pending discussion of the greater part of the material, some interesting preliminary results were published in 1906 by the French observers. C.E.H. Bourget and Montangerand conclude that there is a marked division of the chromosphere into two regions or shells, a lower or “reversing-layer,” extending only 1″ from the limb, and a chromospheric layer extending to 3″ or 4″; and that the coronal light contains less blue and violet, but more green and yellow, than sunlight; while Fabry, by visual methods, obtained measures of the total and intrinsic intensity of the light from the corona closely confirming recent photographic observations, finding the total brightness about equal to that of the full moon, and the intrinsic brightness at 5′ from the limb about one quarter of that of the full moon.

(H. H. T.)

II. Eclipses of the Moon.

The physical phenomena attending eclipses of the moon are no longer of a high order of interest either to the layman or scientific observer. A brief statement of them and their causes will therefore be sufficient. An observer watching such an eclipse from the moon would see the earth, which has nearly four times the apparent diameter of the sun, impinging on the sun’s disk and slowly hiding it. The phenomenon would be quite similar to that of an eclipse of the sun seen from the earth, until the sun was completely covered. During the progress of this partial eclipse the moon would be passing into the earth’s penumbra. As the moment of total obscuration approached, a red band of light would rapidly form in the neighbourhood of the disappearing limb of the sun, and gradually extend around the earth. This would arise from the refraction of the sun’s light by the earth’s atmosphere, and the absorption of its blue rays. When the light of the sun was completely hidden, a reddish ring of great brilliancy would, owing to this cause, surround the entire dark body of the earth during the period of the total eclipse.

The aspect of the moon, as seen from the earth, corresponds to this view from the moon. The fading of the moon’s light, due to its entrance into the penumbra, is scarcely noticeable without direct photometric determination until near the beginning of the total phase. Then, as the limb of the moon approaches the earth’s shadow, it begins to darken. When only a small portion has entered into the shadow, that portion is completely hidden. But, as the total phase approaches, the part of the moon’s disk immersed in the penumbra becomes visible by a reddish coppery light—that of the sun refracted through the lower parts of the earth’s atmosphere. The brightness of this illumination is different in different eclipses, a circumstance which may be attributed to the greater or less degree of cloudiness in those regions of the earth’s atmosphere through which the light of the sun passes in order to reach the moon. Its colour is due to absorption in passing through the earth’s atmosphere.

III. Laws and Cycles of Recurrences of Eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

It has been known since remote antiquity that eclipses occur in cycles. These cycles are known now to be determined principally by the motion of the moon’s node and the relations between the revolutions of the earth round the sun and the moon round the earth.

Fig. 4.

Owing to the inclination of the moon’s orbit to the plane of the ecliptic, an eclipse of the sun can occur only when the conjunction of the sun and moon takes place within about 16° of one of the nodes of the moon’s orbit. The Eclipse seasons. eclipse can be total only within about 11° of the node. An eclipse of the moon can occur only when the line sun-moon-earth makes an angle less than about 11° with the line of nodes; and the eclipse can be total only within about 8° of the node, the average limiting distances varying 1° or 2° according to the circumstances. These conditions being understood, the cycles of recurrence of eclipses of either kind can be worked out geometrically from the mean motions of the sun, moon, node and perigee by the aid of geometric conceptions shown in their simplest form in fig. 4. Here E is the earth, at the centre of a circle representing the mean orbit of the moon around it. MN is the line of nodes which is moving in the retrograde direction from N towards S1, at a rate of about 19.3° in a year, making a complete revolution in 18.6 years. Let the sun at the moment of some new moon be in the line ES1, continued. If the angle NES1 is less than 16° there will probably be an eclipse of the sun, which may be central if the angle is less than 11°. Let the next new moon take place in the line ES2 a month later. The mean value of the angle S1ES2 is about 29°; but as the node N has moved towards S1 about 1.4° during the interval, the sum of the angles NES1 and NES2 will be somewhat greater than S1ES2 by about 1.6°. The result is that if these two angles are nearly equal there may be two small partial eclipses of the sun, after which no more can occur until, by the annual revolution of the earth, the direction of the sun approaches the opposite line of nodes EM, nearly six months later. The result is that there are in the course of any one year two “eclipse seasons” each of about one month in duration, in which at least one eclipse of the sun, or possibly two small partial eclipses, may occur. One eclipse of the moon will generally, but not always, occur during a season.

Owing to the retrograde motion of the node the direction ES of the sun returns to the node at the end of about 347 days, so that a third eclipse season may commence before the end of a year. In this way there is a possible but very rare maximum of five eclipses of the sun in a year. Owing to the motion of the line of nodes each eclipse season occurs about 19 days earlier in the year than it did the year before. Another conclusion from the greater eclipse limit for the sun than for the moon is that in the long run eclipses of the sun, as regards the earth generally, occur oftener than those of the moon. But as any eclipse of the sun is visible only from a limited region of the earth’s surface, while one of the moon may be seen from an entire hemisphere, more eclipses of the moon are visible at any one place than of the sun.

If, starting with a conjunction along some line ES1, we mark by radial lines from E the successive conjunctions year after year, we shall find that at the end of 18 years and about 11 days the 223rd conjunction will fall once more very near the line ES1, the angle NES1 being about 24′ greater than before. Successive eclipses will then occur very nearly in the same order as they did 18 years and 11 days before. This period of recurrence has been known from remote antiquity and is called the Saros. What is most remarkable in this period is that in addition to the distance from the node being nearly the same as before, the longitude of the sun increases by only 11° and the distance of the moon from its perigee has changed less than 3°. The result of this approach to coincidence is that the recurring eclipse will generally be of the same kind—total, annular or partial—through a number of successive periods.

To see the law of recurrence of corresponding eclipses in the successive periods let us suppose the line of conjunction ES1 to be that at which there is a very small eclipse, visible only in high northern or southern latitudes. At the end of 18 years 11 days a second eclipse will occur along a line nearly half a degree nearer EN, the line of nodes. The successive eclipses will occur at the same interval through about ten periods, or 180 years, when the line of conjunction will pass within 11° of EN. Then the eclipse will be central, whether annular or total depending on circumstances: in the first one the central lines will pass only over the polar regions; but in successive eclipses of the series it will pass nearer and nearer to the equator until the conjunction line coincides with the node. The path of centrality will then cross in the equatorial region. During 22 or 23 more recurrences the path will continually approach to the opposite pole and finally leave the earth entirely. The entire number of central eclipses in any one series will generally be about forty-five. Then a series of continually diminishing partial eclipses will go on for about ten periods more. The whole series of eclipses will therefore extend through about sixty-five periods; and interval of time of about twelve hundred years.

Another remarkable eclipse period recurs at the end of 358 lunations. At the end of this period the line of mean conjunction ES1 falls so near its former position relative to the node that we find each central eclipse visible in our time to be one of an unbroken series extending from the earliest historic times to the present, at intervals equal to the length of the period. The recurring eclipses in this period do not, however, have the remarkable similarity of those belonging to the Saros, but may differ to any extent, owing to the different positions of the line of conjunction with respect to the moon’s perigee. Moreover, they recur alternately at the ascending and descending node. The length of the period is 10,571.95 days, or 29 Julian years less 20.3 days. Hence 18 periods make 521 years, so that at the end of this time each eclipse recurs on or about the same day of the year. As an example of this series, starting from the eclipse of Nineveh, June 15, 763 B.C., recorded on the Assyrian tablets, we find eclipses on May 27, 734 B.C., May 7, 705 B.C., and so on in an unbroken series to 1843, 1872 and 1901, the last being the 93rd of the series. Those at the ends of the 521-year intervals occurred on June 15, O.S., of each of the years 763, 242 B.C., A.D. 280, 801, 1322 and 1843. As the lunar perigee moves through 242.4° in a period, the eclipses will vary from total to annular, but at the end of 3 periods the perigee is only 7.1° in advance of its original position relative to the node. Hence in a series including every third eclipse the eclipses will be of the same character through a thousand years or more. Thus the eclipses of 1467, 1554, 1640, 1727, 1814, 1901, 1988, &c., are total.

IV. Chronological Lists of Eclipses of the Sun.

The following is a brief chronological enumeration of those total eclipses of the sun which are of interest, either from their historic celebrity or the nature of the conclusions Notable eclipses. derived from them. In numbering the years before the Christian era the astronomical nomenclature is used, in which the number of the year is one less than that used by the chronologists. The Chinese eclipses are passed over, owing to the generally doubtful character of the records pertaining to them.

—1069 June 20 and —1062 July 31; total eclipses recorded at Babylon.

—762, June 14; a total eclipse recorded at Nineveh. Computation from the modern tables shows that the path of totality passed about 100 m. or more north of Nineveh.

—647, April 6; total eclipse at or near Thasos, mentioned by Archilochus.

—584, May 28; the celebrated eclipse of Thales. For an account of this eclipse see Thales.

—556, May 19, the eclipse of Larissa. The modern tables show that the eclipse was not total at Larissa, and the connexion of the classical record with the eclipse is doubtful.

—430, August 3; eclipse mentioned by Thucydides, but not total by the tables.

—399, June 21; eclipse of Ennius. Totality occurred immediately after sunset at Rome. The identity of this eclipse is doubtful.

—309, August 14; eclipse of Agathocles. This eclipse would be one of the most valuable for testing the tables of the moon, but for an uncertainty as to the location of Agathocles, who, at the time of the occurrence, was at sea on a voyage from Syracuse to Carthage.

F.K. Ginzel (Spezieller Kanon der Finsternisse) has collected a great number of passages from classical authors supposed to refer to eclipses of the sun or moon, but the difficulty of identifying the phenomenon is frequently such as to justify great doubt as to the conclusions. In a few cases no eclipse corresponding to the description can be found by our modern table to have occurred, and in others the latitude of interpretation and the uncertainty of the date are so wide that the eclipse cannot be identified.

Of medieval eclipses we mention only the dates of those visible in England, referring for details to the works mentioned in the bibliography. The letter C following a date shows that the eclipse is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. The dates in question are:—

A.D.

538, February 15, C. (partial).

A.D.

 878, October 29, C.

   540, June 12, C. (partial).

    885, June 15.

   594, July 23.

   1023, January 24.

   603, August 12.

   1133, August 1, C.

   639, September 3.

   1140, March 20, C.

   664, May 1, C.

   1185, May 1, C.

   733, August 14 (annular).

   1191, June 23, C. (annular).

   764, June 4 (annular).

   1330, July 16.

Besides these, the tables show that the shadow of the moon passed over some part of the British Islands on 1424, June 26; 1433, June 17; 1598, March 6; 1652, April 8; 1715, May 2; 1724, May 22. Of these the eclipse of 1715 is notable for the careful observations made in England, and published by Halley in the Philosophical Transactions. The next dates are 1927, June 29, when a barely total eclipse will be seen soon after sunrise in the northern counties near the Scottish border, and 1999, August 11, when the moon’s shadow will graze England at Land’s End.

We give below, in tabular form, a list of the principal total eclipses during the 19th and 20th centuries, omitting a few visible only in the extreme polar regions, and some others of which the duration is very short. The first column gives the civil date of the point on the earth’s surface at which the eclipse is central at noon. The next two columns give the position of this point to the nearest degree. The fourth column shows the Greenwich astronomical time of conjunction in longitude. The next column gives the duration of the total phase at the noon-point; this is sometimes 0.1′ less than the absolutely greatest duration at any point. Next is given the node near which the eclipse occurs; and then the number in the Saros. Corresponding eclipses at intervals of 18 y. 11 d. have the same number, and occur near the same node of the noon, which is indicated in the next column.

Date at

Noon-Point.

Point where

Central at Noon.

Greenwich M.T. of

conjunction in

Longitude.

Duration

of

Totality.

Node

Series.

Regions Swept by Shadow.

Lat.

Long.

d.

h.

m.

m.

1803, Feb.

21

11 S.

136 W.

21

9

20

4.2

Asc.

1

Pacific Ocean, Mexico.

1804, Aug.

5

38 S.

66 W.

5

4

6

1.2

Desc.

2

Pacific Ocean, Chile, Argentina.

1806, June

16

42 N.

66 W.

16

4

22

4.6

Desc.

3

New England, Atlantic, Africa.

1807, Nov.

29

11 N.

2 E.

28

23

48

1.4

Asc.

4

Central Africa, Areolia.

1810, April

4

12 N.

154 E.

3

13

41

Ann.

Desc.

5

Pacific Ocean, Borneo.

1811, Mar,

24

39 S.

26 W.

24

2

19

3.4

Desc.

6

South Atlantic to and across South Africa.

1814, July

17

31 N.

84 E.

16

18

33

6.6

Asc.

7

Africa, Central Asia, China.

1815, July

6

88 N.

175 W.

6

11

52

3.2

Asc.

8

Polar Regions, Western Siberia.

1816, Nov.

19

43 N.

30 E.

18

22

9

1.8

Desc.

9

Eastern Europe, Central Asia.

1817, Nov.

9

7 S.

149 E.

8

13

53

4.7

Desc.

10

Burma, Pacific Ocean.

1821, Mar.

4

8 S.

96 E.

3

17

50

4.3

Asc.

1

Indian and Pacific Oceans.

1822, Aug.

16

36 S.

176 W.

16

11

22

1.4

Desc.

2

Australia, Pacific Ocean.

1824, June

26

47 N.

175 W.

26

11

43

4.4

Desc.

3

Pacific Ocean, Japan, China.

1825, Dec.

9

9 N.

127 W.

9

8

27

1.5

Asc.

4

Pacific Ocean, Mexico.

1828, April

14

18 N.

39 E.

13

21

18

0.3

Desc.

5

Northern Africa, India.

1829, April

3

32 S.

149 W.

3

10

24

4.1

Desc.

6

South Pacific Ocean.

1832, July

27

24 N.

28 W.

27

2

2

6.8

Asc.

7

West Indies and across Central Africa.

1833, July

17

78 N.

76 E.

16

19

16

3.5

Asc.

8

North-eastern Asia and Polar Regions.

1834, Nov.

30

40 N.

101 W.

30

6

48

1.9

Desc.

9

Southern and Western United States.

1835, Nov.

20

10 S.

20 E.

19

22

31

4.6

Desc.

10

Central Africa, Madagascar.

1839, Mar.

15

6 S.

31 W.

15

2

14

4.4

Asc.

1

South America, Africa, Egypt.

1840, Aug.

27

34 S.

72 E.

26

18

45

1.6

Desc.

2

Africa, Madagascar, Indian Ocean.

1842, July

8

51 N.

77 E.

7

19

2

4.1

Desc.

3

Spain, France, Russia to China, and Pacific Ocean.

1843, Dec.

21

8 N.

102 E.

20

17

10

1.6

Asc.

4

Indian and North Pacific Oceans and India.

1846, April

25

25 N.

75 W.

25

4

49

0.9

Desc.

5

Mexico, West Indies, Africa.

1847, April

15

24 S.

90 E.

14

18

22

4.7

Desc.

6

Indian Ocean, Australia.

1850, Aug.

7

18 N.

142 W.

7

9

34

6.8

Asc.

7

Pacific Ocean.

1851, July

28

70 N.

34 W.

28

2

41

3.7

Asc.

8

Scandinavia, Russia and North America.

1852, Dec.

11

37 N.

127 E.

10

15

32

2.0

Desc.

9

China, Pacific Ocean.

1857, Mar.

25

4 S.

155 W.

25

10

30

4.5

Asc.

1

Pacific Ocean, Mexico.

1858, Sept.

7

33 S.

41 W.

7

2

16

1.7

Desc.

2

Peru, South Brazil, Uruguay.

1860, July

18

56 N.

31 W.

18

2

21

3.7

Desc.

3

British America, France, Egypt.

1861, Dec.

31

9 N.

29 W.

31

1

55

1.8

Asc.

4

Caribbean Sea to North Africa.

1864, May

6

32 N.

173 E.

5

12

14

1.4

Desc.

5

Pacific Ocean.

1865, April

25

16 S.

30 W.

25

2

13

5.3

Desc.

6

Brazil to Central Africa.

1868, Aug.

18

10 N.

103 E.

17

17

12

6.8

Asc.

7

India to Pacific Ocean.

1869, Aug.

7

61 N.

145 W.

7

10

8

3.8

Asc.

8

United States and Alaska.

1870, Dec.

22

36 N.

5 W.

22

0

19

2.1

Desc.

9

Gibraltar, Northern Africa, Sicily.

1871, Dec.

12

12 S.

118 E.

11

16

2

4.4

Desc.

10

Southern India, Northern Australia.

1875, April

6

2 S.

83 E.

5

18

36

4.7

Asc.

1

Indian Ocean, Siam, Pacific.

1876, Sept.

17

33 S.

156 W.

17

9

54

1.8

Desc.

2

Pacific Ocean.

1878, July

29

60 N.

139 W.

29

9

40

3.2

Desc.

3

United States and Canada.

1880, Jan.

11

10 N.

160 W.

11

10

40

2.1

Asc.

4

Pacific Ocean, California.

1882, May

17

39 N.

63 E.

16

19

34

1.8

Desc.

5

Egypt, Central Asia, China.

1883, May

6

9 S.

147 W.

6

9

58

6.0

Desc.

6

Pacific Ocean, Caroline Islands.

1886, Aug.

29

3 N.

14 W.

29

0

54

6.6

Asc.

7

South America, Central Africa.

1887, Aug.

19

53 N.

102 E.

18

17

39

3.8

Asc.

8

Northern Europe, Siberia, Japan.

1889, Jan.

1

37 N.

138 W.

1

9

8

2.2

Desc.

9

California, Oregon, British America.

1889, Dec.

22

12 S.

13 W.

22

0

52

4.2

Desc.

10

Central Africa and South America.

1893, April

16

1 S.

37 W.

16

2

35

4.8

Asc.

1

Venezuela to West Africa.

1894, Sept.

29

34 S.

86 E.

28

17

43

1.8

Desc.

2

East Africa, Indian Ocean.

1896, Aug.

9

65 N.

112 E.

8

17

2

2.7

Desc.

3

North Europe, Siberia, Japan.

1898, Jan.

22

13 N.

69 E.

21

19

24

2.3

Asc.

4

East Africa, India, China.

1900, May

28

45 N.

45 W.

28

2

50

2.1

Desc.

5

United States, Spain, North Africa.

1901, May

18

2 S.

97 E.

17

17

38

6.5

Desc.

6

Sumatra, Borneo.

1904, Sept.

9

5 S.

133 W.

9

8

43

6.4

Asc.

7

Pacific Ocean.

1905, Aug.

30

45 N.

12 W.

30

1

13

3.8

Asc.

8

Canada, Spain, North Africa.

1907, Jan.

14

39 N.

89 E.

13

17

57

2.3

Desc.

9

Russia, Central Asia.

1908, Jan.

3

12 S.

145 W.

3

9

44

4.2

Desc.

10

Pacific Ocean.

1911, April

28

1 S.

155 W.

28

10

26

5.0

Asc.

1

Australia, Polynesia.

1912, Oct.

10

35 S.

33 W.

10

1

41

1.8

Desc.

2

Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil.

1914, Aug.

21

71 N.

2 E.

21

0

27

2.1

Desc.

3

Scandinavia, Russia, Asia Minor.

1916, Feb.

3

16 N.

62 W.

3

4

6

2.5

Asc.

4

Pacific Ocean, Venezuela, West Indies.

1918, June

8

51 N.

152 W.

8

10

3

2.4

Desc.

5

British Columbia, United States.

1919, May

29

4 N.

18 W.

29

1

12

6.9

Desc.

6

Peru, Brazil, Central Africa.

1922, Sept.

21

12 S.

106 E.

20

16

38

6.1

Asc.

7

East Africa, Australia.

1923, Sept.

10

38 N.

128 W.

10

8

53

3.6

Asc.

8

California, Mexico, Central America.

1925, Jan.

24

42 N.

44 W.

24

2

46

2.4

Desc.

9

United States.

1926, Jan.

14

10 S.

82 E.

13

18

35

4.2

Desc.

10

East Africa, Sumatra, Philippines.

1927, June

29

78 N.

84 E.

28

18

32

0.7

Asc.

11

England, Scotland, Scandinavia.

1929, May

9

1 S.

89 E.

8

18

8

5.1

Asc.

1

Sumatra, Malacca, Philippines.

1930, Oct.

21

36 S.

155 W.

21

9

47

1.9

Desc.

2

Pacific Ocean, Patagonia.

1932, Aug.

31

78 N.

109 W.

31

7

55

1.5

Desc.

3

Canada.

1934, Feb.

14

19 N.

168 E.

13

12

44

2.7

Asc.

4

Borneo, Celebes.

1936, June

19

56 N.

101 E.

18

17

15

2.5

Desc.

5

Greece to Central Asia and Japan.

1937, June

8

10 N.

131 W.

8

8

43

7.1

Desc.

6

Pacific Ocean, Peru.

1940, Oct.

1

19 S.

16 W.

1

0

42

5.7

Asc.

7

Colombia, Brazil, South Africa.

1941, Sept.

21

30 N.

114 E.

20

16

39

3.3

Asc.

8

Central Asia, China, Pacific Ocean.

1943, Feb.

4

47 N.

176 W.

4

11

31

2.5

Desc.

9

China, Alaska.

1947, May

20

2 S.

25 W.

20

1

44

5.2

Asc.

1

Argentina, Paraguay, Central Africa.

1948, Nov.

1

37 S.

82 E.

31

18

3

1.9

Desc.

2

Central Africa, Congo.

1952, Feb.

25

22 N.

39 E.

24

21

17

3.0

Asc.

4

Nubia, Persia, Siberia.

1954, June

30

62 N.

5 W.

30

0

27

2.5

Desc.

5

Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, Persia.

1955, June

20

15 N.

117 E.

19

16

12

7.2

Desc.

6

Ceylon, Siam, Philippines.

1958, Oct.

12

26 S.

139 W.

12

8

52

5.2

Asc.

7

Chile, Argentina.

1959, Oct.

2

23 N.

6 W.

2

0

32

3.0

Asc.

8

Canaries, Central Africa.

1961, Feb.

15

53 N.

53 E.

14

20

11

2.6

Desc.

9

France, Italy, Austria, Siberia.

1962, Feb.

5

4 S.

179 E.

4

12

11

4.1

Desc.

10

New Guinea.

1963, July

20

62 N.

126 W.

20

8

43

1.5

Asc.

11

Alaska, Hudson’s Bay Territory.

1965, May

30

4 S.

137 W.

30

9

14

5.3

Asc.

1

Pacific Ocean.

1966, Nov.

12

38 S.

43 W.

12

2

27

1.9

Desc.

2

Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil.

1970, Mar.

7

25 N.

88 W.

7

5

43

3.3

Asc.

4

Mexico, Georgia, ? Florida.

1972, July

10

67 N.

111 W.

10

7

40

2.7

Desc.

5

North-East Asia, North-East America and Atlantic Ocean.

1973, June

30

19 N.

6 E.

29

23

39

7.2

Desc.

6

South America, Africa and Atlantic Ocean.

1974, June

20

32 S.

107 E.

19

16

56

5.3

Desc.

12

South-West Australia and Indian Ocean.

1976, Oct.

23

31 S.

95 E.

22

17

10

4.9

Asc.

7

Africa, Australia, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

1977, Oct.

12

16 N.

127 W.

12

8

31

2.8

Asc.

8

Venezuela, Pacific Ocean.

1979, Feb.

26

61 N.

77 W.

26

4

47

2.7

Desc.

9

United States, British America, Pacific Ocean, N. Polar Sea.

1980, Feb.

16

1 N.

48 E.

15

20

52

4.3

Desc.

10

Africa, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and India.

1981, July

31

54 N.

127 E.

30

15

53

2.2

Asc.

11

Pacific Ocean, Asia.

1983, June

11

7 S.

111 E.

10

16

38

5.4

Asc.

1

Java, Atlantic Ocean.

1984, Nov.

22

39 S.

170 W.

22

10

58

2.1

Desc.

2

Pacific Ocean, Patagonia.

1987, Mar.

29

17 S.

6 W.

29

0

45

0.3

Asc.

13

Atlantic, Equatorial Africa.

1988, Mar.

18

28 N.

146 E.

17

14

3

4.0

Asc.

4

Indian and Pacific Oceans, Sumatra.

1990, July

22

72 N.

142 E.

21

14

54

2.6

Desc.

5

Finland, North Atlantic.

1991, July

11

22 N.

105 W.

11

7

6

7.1

Desc.

6

Pacific Ocean, Hawaii, Central America.

1992, June

30

26 S.

5 W.

30

0

19

5.4

Desc.

12

South Atlantic.

1994, Nov.

3

36 S.

31 W.

3

1

36

4.6

Asc.

7

Pacific Ocean, South America.

1995, Oct.

24

10 N.

110 E.

23

16

37

2.4

Asc.

8

Pacific and Indian Oceans.

1997, Mar.

9

71 N.

154 E.

8

13

16

2.8

Desc.

9

North-East Asia, Arctic Sea.

1998, Feb.

26

6 N.

81 W.

26

5

27

4.4

Desc.

10

Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Central America.

1999, Aug.

11

46 N.

18 E.

10

23

8

2.6

Asc.

11

Central and Southern Europe touching England.

Recurrence of Remarkable Eclipses.

From the property of the Saros it follows that eclipses remarkable for their duration, or other circumstances depending on the relative positions of the sun and moon, occur at intervals of one saros (18 y. 11 d.). Of interest in this connexion is the recurrence of total eclipses remarkable for their duration. The absolute maximum duration of a total eclipse is about 7′ 30″; but no actual eclipse can be expected to reach this duration. Those which will come nearest to the maximum during the next 500 years belong to the series numbered 4 and 6 and in the list which precedes. These occurring in the years 1937, 1955, &c., will ultimately fall little more than 20″ below the maximum. But the series 4, though not now remarkable in this respect, will become so in the future, reaching in the eclipse of June 25, 2150, a duration of about 7′ 15″ and on July 5, 2168, a duration of 7′ 28″, the longest in human history. The first of these will pass over the Pacific Ocean; the second over the southern part of the Indian Ocean near Madras.

All the national annual Ephemerides contain elements of the eclipses of the sun occurring during the year. Those of England, America and France also give maps showing the path of the central line, if any, over the earth’s surface; the lines of eclipse beginning and ending at sunrise, &c., and the outlines of the shadow from hour to hour. By the aid of the latter the time at which an eclipse begins or ends at any point can be determined by inspection or measurement within a few minutes.

V. Methods of computing Eclipses of the Sun.

The complete computation of the circumstances of an eclipse ab initio requires three distinct processes. The geocentric positions of the sun and moon have first to be computed from the tables of the motions of those bodies. The second Elements of eclipses. step is to compute certain elements of the eclipse from these geocentric positions. The third step is from these elements to compute the circumstances of the eclipse for the earth generally or for any given place on its surface. The national Astronomical Ephemerides, or “Nautical Almanacs,” give in full the geocentric positions of the sun and moon from at least the early part of the 19th century to an epoch three years in advance of the date of publication. It is therefore unnecessary to undertake the first part of the computation except for dates outside the limits of the published ephemerides, and for many years to come even this computation will be unnecessary, because tables giving the elements of eclipses from the earliest historic periods up to the 22nd century have been published by T. Ritter von Oppolzer and by Simon Newcomb. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a statement of the eclipse problem and of the principles on which such tables rest.

Two systems of eclipse elements are now adopted in the ephemerides and tables; the one, that of F.W. Bessel, is used in the English, American and French ephemerides, the other—P. A. Hansen’s—in the German and in the eclipse tables of T. Ritter von Oppolzer. The two have in common certain geometric constructions. The fundamental axis of reference in both systems is the line passing through the centres of the sun and moon; this is the common axis of the shadow cones, which envelop simultaneously the sun and moon as shown in figs. 1, 2, 3. The surface of one of these cones, that of the umbra, is tangent to both bodies externally. This cone comes to a point at a distance from the moon nearly equal to that of the earth. Within it the sun is wholly hidden by the moon. Outside the umbral cone is that of the penumbra, within which the sun is partially hidden by the moon. The geometric condition that the two bodies shall appear in contact, or that the eclipse shall begin or end at a certain moment, is that the surface of one of these cones shall pass through the place of the observer at that moment. Let a plane, which we call the fundamental plane, pass through the centre of the earth perpendicular to the shadow axis. On this plane the centre of the earth is taken as an origin of rectangular co-ordinates. The axis of Z is perpendicular to the plane, and therefore parallel to the shadow axis; that of Y and X lie in the plane. In these fundamental constructions the two methods coincide. They differ in the direction of the axis of Y and X in the fundamental plane. In Bessel’s method, which we shall first describe, the intersection of the plane of the earth’s equator with the fundamental plane is taken as the axis of X. The axis of Y is perpendicular to it, the positive direction being towards the north. The Besselian elements of an eclipse are then:—x, y, the co-ordinates of the shadow axis on the fundamental plane; d, the declination of that point in which the shadow axis intersects the celestial sphere; μ, the Greenwich hour angle of this point; l, the radius of the circle, in which the penumbral or outer cone intersects the fundamental plane; and l’, the radius of the circle, in which the inner or umbral cone intersects this plane, taken positively when the vertex of the cone does not reach the plane, so that the axis must be produced, and negatively when the vertex is beyond the plane.

Hansen’s method differs from that of Bessel in that the ecliptic is taken as the fundamental plane instead of the equator. The axis of X on the fundamental plane is parallel to the plane of the ecliptic; that of Y perpendicular to it. The other elements are nearly the same in the two theories. As to their relative advantages, it may be remarked that Hansen’s co-ordinates follow most simply from the data of the tables, and are necessarily used in eclipse tables, but that the subsequent computation is simpler by Bessel’s method.

Several problems are involved in the complete computation of an eclipse from the elements. First, from the values of the latter at a given moment to determine the point, if any, at which the shadow-axis intersects the surface of the earth, and the respective outlines of the umbra and penumbra on that surface. Within the umbral curve the eclipse is annular or total; outside of it and within the penumbral curve the eclipse is partial at the given moment. The penumbral line is marked from hour to hour on the maps given annually in the American Ephemeris. Second, a series of positions of the central point through the course of an eclipse gives us the path of the central point along the surface of the earth, and the envelopes of the penumbral and umbral curves just described are boundaries within which a total, annular or partial eclipse will be visible. In particular, we have a certain definite point on the earth’s surface on which the edge of the shadow first impinges; this impingement necessarily takes place at sunrise. Then passing from this point, we have a series of points on the surface at which the elements of the shadow-cone are in succession tangent to the earth’s surface. At all these points the eclipse begins at sunrise until a certain limit is reached, after which, following the successive elements, it ends at sunrise. At the limiting point the rim of the moon merely grazes that of the sun at sunrise, so that we may say that the eclipse both begins and ends at that time. Of course the points we have described are also found at the ending of the eclipse. There is a certain moment at which the shadow-axis leaves the earth at a certain point, and a series of moments when, the elements of the penumbral cone being tangent to the earth’s surface, the eclipse is ending at sunset. Three cases may arise in studying the passage of the outlines of the shadow over the earth. It may be that all the elements of the penumbral cone intersect the earth. In this case we shall have both a northern and a southern limit of partial eclipse. In the second case there will be no limit on the one side except that of the eclipse beginning or ending at sunrise or sunset. Or it may happen, as the third case, that the shadow-axis does not intersect the earth at all; the eclipse will then not be central at any point, but at most only partial.

The third problem is, from the same data, to find the circumstances of an eclipse at a given place—especially the times of beginning and ending, or the relative positions of the sun and moon at a given moment. Reference to the formulae for all these problems will be given in the bibliography of the subject.

Authorities.—The richest mine of information respecting eclipses of the sun and moon is T.R. von Oppolzer’s “Kanon der Finsternisse,” published by the Vienna Academy of Sciences in the 52nd volume of its Denkschriften (Vienna, 1887). It contains elements of all eclipses both of the sun and moon, from 1207 B.C. to A.D. 2161, a period of more than thirty centuries. Appended to the tables is a series of charts showing the paths of all central eclipses visible in the northern hemisphere during the period covered by the table. The points of the path at which the eclipse occurs, at sunrise, noon and sunset, are laid down with precision, but the intermediate points are frequently in error by several hundred miles, as they were not calculated, but projected simply by drawing a circle through the three points just mentioned. For this reason we cannot infer from them that an eclipse was total at any given place. The correct path can, however, be readily computed from the tables given in the work. Eduard Mahler’s memoir, “Die centralen Sonnenfinsternisse des 20. Jahrhunderts” (Denkschriften, Vienna Academy, vol. xlix.), gives more exact paths of the central eclipses of the 20th century, but no maps. General tables for computing eclipses are Oppolzer’s “Syzygientafeln für den Mond” (Publications of the Astronomische Gesellschaft, xvi.), and Newcomb’s, in Publications of the American Ephemeris, vol. i. part i. Of these, Oppolzer’s are constructed with greater numerical accuracy and detail, while Newcomb’s are founded on more recent astronomical data, and are preferable for computing ancient eclipses. F.K. Ginzel’s Spezieller Kanon der Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse (Berlin, 1899) contains, besides the historical researches already mentioned, maps of the paths of central eclipses visible in the lands of classical antiquity from 900 B.C. to A.D. 500, but computed with imperfect astronomical data. Maguire, “Monthly Notices,” R.A.S. xlv. and xlvi., has mapped the total solar eclipses visible in the British Islands from 878 to 1724. General papers of interest on the same subject have been published by Rev. S.J. Johnson. A résumé of all the observations on the physical phenomena of total solar eclipses up to 1878, by A.C. Ranyard, is to be found in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xli. A very copious development of the computation of eclipses by Bessel’s method is found in W. Chauvenet’s Spherical and Practical Astronomy, vol. i. The Theory of Eclipses, by R. Buchanan (Philadelphia, 1904), treats the subject yet more fully. Hansen’s method is developed in the Abhandlungen of the Leipzig Academy of Sciences, vol. vi. (Math.-Phys. Classe, vol. iv.). The formulae of computation by this method are found in the introductions to Oppolzer’s two works cited above.

(S. N.)

ECLIPTIC, in astronomy. The plane of the ecliptic is that plane in or near which the centre of gravity of the earth and moon revolves round the sun. The ecliptic itself is the great circle in which this plane meets the celestial sphere. It is also defined, but not with absolute rigour, as the apparent path described by the sun around the celestial sphere as the earth performs its annual revolution. Owing to the action of the moon on the earth, as it performs its monthly revolution in an orbit slightly inclined to the ecliptic, the centre of the earth itself deviates from the plane of the ecliptic in a period equal to that of the nodal revolution of the moon. The deviation is extremely slight, its maximum amount ranging between 0.5′ and 0.6″. Owing to the action of the planets, especially Venus and Jupiter, on the earth, the centre of gravity of the earth and moon deviates by a yet minuter amount, generally one or two tenths of a second, from the plane of the ecliptic proper. Owing to the action of the planets, the position of the ecliptic is subject to a slow secular variation amounting, during our time, to nearly 47″ per century. The rate of this motion is slowly diminishing.

The obliquity of the ecliptic is the angle which its plane makes with that of the equator. Its mean value is now about 23° 27′. The motion of the ecliptic produces a secular variation in the obliquity which is now diminishing by an amount nearly equal to the entire motion of the ecliptic itself. The laws of motion of the ecliptic and equator are stated in the article Precession of the Equinoxes.

Attempts have been made by Laplace and his successors to fix certain limits within which the obliquity of the ecliptic shall always be confined. The results thus derived are, however, based on imperfect formulae. When the problem is considered in a rigorous form, it is found that no absolute limits can be set. It can, however, be shown that the obliquity cannot vary more than two or three degrees within a million of years of our epoch.

The formula for the obliquity of the ecliptic, as derived from the laws of motion of it and of the equator, may be developed in a series proceeding according to the ascending powers of the time as follows: we put T, the time from 1900, reckoned in solar centuries as a unit. Then,

Obliquity = 23° 27′ 31.68″ − 46.837″ T − 0.0085″ T² + 0.0017″ T³.

From this expression is derived the value of the obliquity at various epochs given in the following table. The left-hand portion of this table gives the values for intervals of 500 years from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 2500 as computed from modern data. For dates more than three or four centuries before or after 1850 the result is necessarily uncertain by one or more tenths of a minute, and is therefore only given to 0.1′.

B.C.

2000;

obl.

= 23°

55.5″

  

A.D.

1700;

obl.

= 23°

28′

41.91″

1500

”

= 23

52.3

1750

”

= 23

28

18.51

1000

”

= 23

48.9

1800

”

= 23

27

55.10

 500

”

= 23

45.4

1850

”

= 23

27

31.68

  0

”

= 23

41.7

1900

”

= 23

27

 8.26

A.D.

 500

”

= 23

38.0

1950

”

= 23

26

44.84

1000

”

= 23

34.1

2000

”

= 23

26

21.41

1500

”

= 23

30.3

2050

”

= 23

25

57.99

2000

”

= 23

26.4

2100

”

= 23

25

34.56

2500

”

= 23

22.5

 

 

 

 

 

(S. N.)

ECLOGITE (from Gr. ἐκλογή, a selection), in petrology, a typical member of a small group of metamorphic rocks of special interest on account of the variety of minerals they contain and their microscopic structures and geological relationships. Typically they consist of pale green or nearly colourless augite (omphacite), green hornblende and pink garnet. Quartz also is usually present in these rocks, but felspar is rare. The augite is mostly a variety of diopside and is only occasionally idiomorphic. The garnet sometimes forms good dodecahedra, but may occur as rounded grains, and encloses quartz, rutile, kyanite, and other minerals very frequently. The hornblende is usually pale green and feebly dichroic, but, in some eclogites which are allied to garnet-amphibolites, it is of dark brown colour. Among the commoner accessory minerals are kyanite (of blue or greyish-blue tints), rutile, biotite, epidote and zoisite, sphene, iron oxides, and pyrites. The rutile is invariably in small brown prisms; the kyanite forms bladed crystals, with perfect cleavage; felspar, if present, belongs to basic varieties rich in lime. Other minerals which have been found in eclogites are bronzite, olivine and glaucophane. The last mentioned is a bright blue variety of hornblende with striking pleochroism. The eclogites in their chemical composition show close affinities to gabbros; they often exhibit relationships in the field which show that they were primarily intrusive rocks of igneous origin, and occasionally contact alteration can be traced in the adjacent schists. Examples are known in Saxony, Bavaria, Carinthia, Austria, Norway. A few eclogites also occur in the north-west highlands of Scotland. Glaucophane-eclogites have been met with in Italy and the Pennine Alps. Specimens of rock allied to eclogite have been found in the diamantiferous peridotite breccias of South Africa (the so-called “blue ground”), and this has given rise to the theory that these are the parent masses from which the Kimberley diamonds have come.

(J. S. F.)

ECLOGUE, a short pastoral dialogue in verse. The word is conjectured to be derived from the Greek verb ἐκλέγειν, to choose. An eclogue, perhaps, in its primary signification was a selected piece. Another more fantastic derivation traces it to αἴξ, goat, and λόγος, speech, and makes it a conversation of shepherds. The idea of dialogue, however, is not necessary for an eclogue, which is often not to be distinguished from the idyll. The grammarians, in giving this title to Virgil’s pastoral conversations (Bucolica), tended to make the term “eclogue” apply exclusively to dialogue, and this has in fact been the result of the success of Virgil’s work. Latin eclogues were also written by Calpurnius Siculus and by Nemesianus. In modern literature the term has lost any distinctive character which it may have possessed among the Romans; it is merged in the general notion of pastoral poetry. The French “Églogues” of J.R. de Segrais (1624-1701) were long famous, and those of the Spanish poet Garcilasso de La Vega (1503-1536) are still admired.

See also Bucolics; Pastoral.

ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY, the name given to the study of insects based on their relation to man, his domestic animals and his crops, and, in the case of those that are injurious, of the practical methods by which they can be prevented from doing harm, or be destroyed when present. In Great Britain little attention is paid to this important branch of agricultural science, but in America and the British colonies the case is different. Nearly every state in America has its official economic entomologists, and nearly every one of the British crown colonies is provided with one or more able men who help the agricultural community to battle against the insect pests. Most, if not all, of the important knowledge of remedies comes from America, where this subject reaches the highest perfection; even the life-histories of some of the British pests have been traced out in the United States and British colonies more completely than at home, from the creatures that have been introduced from Europe.

Some idea of the importance of this subject may be gained from the following figures. The estimated loss by the vine Phylloxera in the Gironde alone was £32,000,000; for all the French wine districts £100,000,000 would not cover the damage. It has been stated on good evidence that a loss of £7,000,000 per annum was caused by the attack of the ox warble fly on cattle in England alone. In a single season Aberdeenshire suffered nearly £90,000 worth of damage owing to the ravages of the diamond back moth on the root crops; in New York state the codling moth caused a loss of $3,000,000 to apple-growers. Yet these figures are nothing compared to the losses due to scale insects, locusts and other pests.

The most able exponent of this subject in Great Britain was John Curtis, whose treatise on Farm Insects, published in 1860, is still the standard British work dealing with the insect foes of corn, roots, grass and stored corn. The most important works dealing with fruit and other pests come from the pens of Saunders, Lintner, Riley, Slingerland and others in America and Canada, from Taschenberg, Lampa, Reuter and Kollar in Europe, and from French, Froggatt and Tryon in Australia. It was not until the last quarter of the 19th century that any real advance was made in the study of economic entomology. Among the early writings, besides the book of Curtis, there may also be mentioned a still useful little publication by Pohl and Kollar, entitled Insects Injurious to Gardeners, Foresters and Farmers, published in 1837, and Taschenberg’s Praktische Insecktenkunde. American literature began as far back as 1788, when a report on the Hessian fly was issued by Sir Joseph Banks; in 1817 Say began his writings; while in 1856 Asa Fitch started his report on the “Noxious Insects of New York.” Since that date the literature has largely increased. Among the most important reports, &c., may be mentioned those of C.V. Riley, published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, extending from 1878 to his death, in which is embodied an enormous amount of valuable matter. At his death the work fell to Professor L.O. Howard, who constantly issues brochures of equal value in the form of Bulletins of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The chief writings of J.A. Lintner extend from 1882 to 1898, in yearly parts, under the title of Reports on the Injurious Insects of the State of New York. Another author whose writings rank high on this subject is M.V. Slingerland, whose investigations are published by Cornell University. Among other Americans who have largely increased the literature and knowledge must be mentioned F.M. Webster and E.P. Felt. In 1883 appeared a work on fruit pests by William Saunders, which mainly applies to the American continent; and another small book on the same subject was published in 1898 by Miss Ormerod, dealing with the British pests. In Australia Tryon published a work on the Insect and Fungus Enemies of Queensland in 1889. Many other papers and reports are being issued from Australia, notably by Froggatt in New South Wales. At the Cape excellent works and papers are prepared and issued by the government entomologist, Dr Lounsbury, under the auspices of the Agricultural Department; while from India we have Cotes’s Notes on Economic Entomology, published by the Indian Museum in 1888, and other works, especially on tea pests.

Injurious insects occur among the following orders: Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera (both heteroptera and homoptera), Orthoptera, Neuroptera and Thysanoptera. The order Aptera also contains a few injurious species.

Fig. 1.

—A, Wireworm; B, pupa of Click Beetle; C, adult Click Beetle (

Agriotes lineatum

).

Among the Coleoptera or beetles there is a group of world-wide pests, the Elateridae or click beetles, the adults of the various “wireworms.” The insects in the larval or wireworm stage attack the roots of plants, eating them away below the ground. The eggs deposited by the beetle in the ground develop into yellowish-brown wire-like grubs with six legs on the first three segments and a ventral prominence on the anal segment. The life of these subterranean pests differs in the various species; some undoubtedly (Agriotes lineatum) live for three or four years, during the greater part of which time they gnaw away at the roots of plants, carrying wholesale destruction before them. When mature they pass deep into the ground and pupate, appearing after a few months as the click beetles (fig. 1). Most crops are attacked by them, but they are particularly destructive to wheat and other cereals. With such subterranean pests little can be done beyond rolling the land to keep it firm, and thus preventing them from moving rapidly from plant to plant. A few crops, such as mustard, seem deleterious to them. By growing mustard and ploughing it in green the ground is made obnoxious to the wireworms, and may even be cleared of them. For root-feeders, bisulphide of carbon injected into the soil is of particular value. One ounce injected about 2 ft. from an apple tree on two sides has been found to destroy all the ground form of the woolly aphis. In garden cultivation it is most useful for wireworm, used at the rate of 1 ounce to every 4 sq. yds. It kills all root pests.

In Great Britain the flea beetles (Halticidae) are one of the most serious enemies; one of these, the turnip flea (Phyllotreta nemorum), has in some years, notably 1881, caused more than £500,000 loss in England and Scotland alone by eating the young seedling turnips, cabbage and other Cruciferae. In some years three or four sowings have to be made before a “plant” is produced, enormous loss in labour and cost of seed alone being thus involved. These beetles, characterized by their skipping movements and enlarged hind femora, also attack the hop (Haltica concinna), the vine in America (Graptodera chalybea, Illig.), and numerous other species of plants, being specially harmful to seedlings and young growth. Soaking the seed in strong-smelling substances, such as paraffin and turpentine, has been found efficacious, and in some districts paraffin sprayed over the seedlings has been practised with decided success. This oil generally acts as an excellent preventive of this and other insect attacks.

In all climates fruit and forest trees suffer from weevils or Curculionidae. The plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar, Herbst) in America causes endless harm in plum orchards; curculios in Australia ravage the vines and fruit trees (Orthorrhinus klugii, Schon, and Leptops hopei, Bohm, &c.). In Europe a number of “long-snouted” beetles, such as the raspberry weevils (Otiorhynchus picipes), the apple blossom weevil (Anthonomus pomorum), attack fruit; others, as the “corn weevils” (Calandra oryzae and C. granaria), attack stored rice and corn; while others produce swollen patches on roots (Ceutorhynchus sulcicollis), &c. All these Curculionidae are very timid creatures, falling to the ground at the least shock. This habit can be used as a means of killing them, by placing boards or sacks covered with tar below the trees, which are then gently shaken. As many of these beetles are nocturnal, this trapping should take place at night. Larval “weevils” mostly feed on the roots of plants, but some, such as the nut weevil (Balaninus nucum), live as larvae inside fruit. Seeds of various plants are also attacked by weevils of the family Bruchidae, especially beans and peas. These seed-feeders may be killed in the seeds by subjecting them to the fumes of bisulphide of carbon. The corn weevils (Calandra granaria and C. oryzae) are now found all over the world, in many cases rendering whole cargoes of corn useless.

The most important Hymenopterous pests are the sawflies or Tenthredinidae, which in their larval stage attack almost all vegetation. The larvae of these are usually spoken of as “false caterpillars,” on account of their resemblance to the larvae of a moth. They are most ravenous feeders, stripping bushes and trees completely of their foliage, and even fruit. Sawfly larvae can at once be recognized by the curious positions they assume, and by the number of pro-legs, which exceeds ten. The female lays her eggs in a slit made by means of her “saw-like” ovipositor in the leaf or fruit of a tree. The pupae in most of these pests are found in an earthen cocoon beneath the ground, or in some cases above ground (Lophyrus pini). One species, the slugworm (Eriocampa limacina), is common to Europe and America; the larva is a curious slug-like creature, found on the upper surface of the leaves of the pear and cherry, which secretes a slimy coating from its skin. Currant and gooseberry are also attacked by sawfly larvae (Nematus ribesii and N. ventricosus) both in Europe and America. Other species attack the stalks of grasses and corn (Cephus pygmaeus). Forest trees also suffer from their ravages, especially the conifers (Lophyrus pini). Another group of Hymenoptera occasionally causes much harm in fir plantations, namely, the Siricidae or wood-wasps, whose larvae burrow into the trunks of the trees and thus kill them. For all exposed sawfly larvae hellebore washes are most fatal, but they must not be used over ripe or ripening fruit, as the hellebore is poisonous.

The order Diptera contains a host of serious pests. These two-winged insects attack all kinds of plants, and also animals in their larval stage. Many of the adults are bloodsuckers (Tabanidae, Culicidae, &c.); others are parasitic in their larval stage (Oestridae, &c.). The best-known dipterous pests are the Hessian fly (Cecidomyia destructor), the pear midge (Diplosis pyrivora), the fruit flies (Tephritis Tyroni of Queensland and Halterophora capitata or the Mediterranean fruit fly), the onion fly (Phorbia cepetorum), and numerous corn pests, such as the gout fly (Chloropstaeniopus) and the frit fly (Oscinis frit). Animals suffer from the ravages of bot flies (Oestridae) and gad flies (Tabanidae); while the tsetse disease is due to the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans), carrying the protozoa that cause the disease from one horse to another. Other flies act as disease-carriers, including the mosquitoes (Anopheles), which not only carry malarial germs, but also form a secondary host for these parasites. Hundreds of acres of wheat are lost annually in America by the ravages of the Hessian fly; the fruit flies of Australia and South Africa cause much loss to orange and citron growers, often making it necessary to cover the trees in muslin tents for protection. Of animal pests the ox warbles (Hypoderma lineata and H. bovis) are the most important (see fig. 2). The “bots” or larvae of these flies live under the skin of cattle, producing large swollen lumps—“warbles”—in which the “bots” mature (fig. 2). These parasites damage the hide, set up inflammation, and cause immense loss to farmers, herdsmen and butchers. The universal attack that has been made upon this pest has, however, largely decreased its numbers. In America cattle suffer much from the horn fly (Haematobia serrata). The dipterous garden pests, such as the onion fly, carrot fly and celery fly, can best be kept in check by the use of paraffin emulsions and the treatment of the soil with gas-lime after the crop is lifted. Cereal pests can only be treated by general cleanliness and good farming, and of course they are largely kept down by the rotation of crops.

Fig. 2.

—A, Ox Bot Maggot; B, puparium; C, Ox Warble Fly (

Hypoderma bovis

).

Fig. 3.

—Looper-larva of Winter Moth (

Cheimatobia brumata

).

Lepidopterous enemies are numerous all over the world. Fruit suffers much from the larvae of the Geometridae, the so-called “looper-larvae” or “canker-worms.” Of these geometers the winter moth (Cheimatobia brumata) is one of the chief culprits in Europe (fig. 3). The females in this moth and in others allied to it are wingless. These insects pass the pupal stage in the ground, and reach the boughs to lay their eggs by crawling up the trunks of the trees. To check them, “grease-banding” round the trees has been adopted; but as many other pests eat the leafage, it is best to kill all at once by spraying with arsenical poisons. Among other notable Lepidopterous pests are the “surface larvae” or cutworms (Agrotis spp.), the caterpillars of various Noctuae; the codling moth (Carpocapsa pomonella), which causes the maggot in apples, has now become a universal pest, having spread from Europe to America and to most of the British Colonies. In many years quite half the apple crop is lost in England owing to the larvae destroying the fruit. Sugar-canes suffer from the sugar-cane borer (Diatioca sacchari) in the West Indies; tobacco from the larvae of hawk moths (Sphingidae) in America; corn and grass from various Lepidopterous pests all over the world. Nor are stored goods exempt, for much loss annually takes place in corn and flour from the presence of the larvae of the Mediterranean flour moth (Ephestia kuniella); while furs and clothes are often ruined by the clothes moth (Tinea trapezella).

By far the most destructive insects in warm climates belong to the Hemiptera, especially to the Coccidae or scale insects. All fruit and forest trees suffer from these curious insects, which in the female sex always remain apterous and apodal and live attached to the bark, leaf and fruit, hidden beneath variously formed scale-like coverings. The male scales differ in form from the female; the adult male is winged, and is rarely seen. The female lays her eggs beneath the scaly covering, from which hatch out little active six-legged larvae, which wander about and soon begin to form a new scale. The Coccidae can, and mainly do, breed asexually (parthenogenetically). One of the most important is the San José scale (Aspidiotus perniciosus), which in warm climates attacks all fruit and many other trees, which, if unmolested, it will soon kill (fig. 4). These scales breed very rapidly; Howard states one may give rise to a progeny of 3,216,080,400 in one year. Other scale insects of note are the cosmopolitan mussel scale (Mytilaspis pomorum) and the Australian Icerya purchasi. The former attacks apple and pear; the latter, which selects orange and citron, was introduced into America from Australia, and carried ruin before it in some orange districts until its natural enemy, the lady-bird beetle, Vedalia cardinalis, was also imported.

Fig. 4.

—San José Scale (

Aspidiotus perniciosus

). A, Male scale insect; B, female; C, larva; D, female scale; E, male scale.

After the Coccidae the next most important insects economically are the plant lice or Aphididae. These breed with great rapidity under favourable conditions: one by the end of the year will be accountable, according to Linnaeus, for the enormous number of a quintillion of its species. Aphides are born, as a rule, alive, and the young soon commence to reproduce again. Their food consists mainly of the sap obtained from the leaves and blossom of plants, but some also live on the roots of plants (Phylloxera vastatrix and Schizoneura lanigera). Aphides often ruin whole crops of fruit, corn, hops, &c., by sucking out the sap, and not only check growth, but may even entail the death of the plant. Reproduction is mainly asexual, the females producing living young without the agency of a male. Males in nearly all species appear once a year, when the last female generation, the ovigerous generation, is fertilized, and a few large ova are produced to carry on the continuity of the species over the winter. Some aphides live only on one species of plant, others on two or more plants. An example of the latter is seen in the hop aphis (Phorodon humuli), which passes the winter and lives on the sloe and damson in the egg stage until the middle of May or later, and then flies off to the hops, where it causes endless harm all the summer (fig. 5); it flies back to the prunes to lay its eggs when the hops are ripe. Another aphis of importance is the woolly aphis (Schizoneura lanigera) of the apple and pear: it secretes tufts of white flocculent wool often to be seen hanging in patches from old apple trees, where the insects live in the rough bark and form cankered growths both above and below ground. Aphides are provided with a mealy skin, which does not allow water to be attached to it, and thus insecticides for destroying them contain soft soap, which fixes the solution to the skin; paraffin is added to corrode the skin, and the soft soap blocks up the breathing pores and so produces asphyxiation.

Fig. 5.

—The Hop Aphis (

Phorodon humuli

). A, Winged female; B, winged male; C, ovigerous wingless female; D, viviparous wingless female from plum; E, pupal stage.

Amongst Orthoptera we find many noxious insects, notably the locusts, which travel in vast cloud-like armies, clearing the whole country before them of all vegetable life. The most destructive locust is the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria), which causes wholesale destruction in the East. Large pits are dug across the line of advance of these great insect armies to stop them when in the larval or wingless stage, and even huge bonfires are lighted to check their flight when adult. So dense are these “locust clouds” that they sometimes quite darken the air. The commonest and most widely distributed migratory locust is Pachytylus cinerascens. The mole cricket (Gryllotalpa vulgaris) and various cockroaches (Blattidae) are also amongst the pests found in this order.

Of Neuroptera there are but few injurious species, and many, such as the lace wing flies (Hemerobiidae), are beneficial.

The Treatment of Insect Pests.—One of the most important ways of keeping insect pests in check is by “spraying” or “washing.” This method has made great advances in recent years. All the pioneer work has been done in America; in fact, until the South-Eastern Agricultural College undertook the elucidation of this subject, little was known of it in England except by a few growers. The results and history of this essential method of treatment are embodied in Professor Lodemann’s work on the Spraying of Plants, 1896. In this treatment we have to bear in mind what the entomologist teaches us, that is, the nature, habits and structure of the pest.

For insects provided with a biting mouth, which take nourishment from the whole leaf, shoot or fruit, the poisonous washes used are chiefly arsenical. The two most useful arsenical sprays are Paris green and arsenate of lead. To make the former, mix 1 oz. of the Paris green with 15 gallons of soft water, and add 2 oz. of lime and a small quantity of agricultural treacle; the latter is prepared by dissolving 3 oz. of acetate of lead in a little water, then 1 oz. of arsenate of soda in water and mixing the two well together, and adding the whole to 16 gallons of soft water; to this is added a small quantity of coarse treacle. For piercing-mouthed pests like Aphides no wash is of use unless it contains a basis of soft soap. This soft-soap wash kills by contact, and may be prepared in the following way:—Dissolve 6 to 8 ℔ of the best soft soap in boiling soft water and while still hot (but of course taken off the fire) add 1 gallon of paraffin oil and churn well together with a force-pump; the whole may then be mixed with 100 gallons of soft water. The oil readily separates from the water, and thus a perfect emulsion is not obtained: this difficulty has been solved by Mr Cousin’s paraffin naphthalene wash, which is patented, but can be made for private use. It is prepared as follows:—Soft soap, 6 ℔ dissolved in 1 quart of water; naphthalene, 10 oz. mixed with 1½ pint of paraffin; the whole is mixed together. When required for use, 1 ℔ of the compound is dissolved in 5 to 10 gallons of warm water.

These two washes are essential to the well-being of every orchard in all climates. Not only can we now destroy larval and adult insects, but we can also attack them in the egg stage by the use of a caustic alkali wash during the winter; besides destroying the eggs of such pests as the Psyllidae, red spider, and some aphides, this also removes the vegetal encumbrances which shelter numerous other insect pests during the cold part of the year. Caustic alkali wash is prepared by dissolving 1 ℔ of crude potash and 1 ℔ of caustic soda in soft water, mixing the two solutions together, adding to them ¾ ℔ of soft soap, and diluting with 10 gallons of soft water when required for use. Another approved insecticide for scale insects is resin wash, which acts in two ways: first, corroding the soft scales, and second, fixing the harder scales to stop the egress of the hexapod larvae. It is prepared as follows:—First crush 8 ℔ of resin in a sack, and then place the resin in warm water and boil in a cauldron until thoroughly dissolved; then melt 10 ℔ of caustic soda in enough warm water to keep it liquid, and mix with the dissolved resin; keep stirring until the mixture assumes a clear coffee-colour, and for ten minutes afterwards; then add enough warm water to bring the whole up to 25 gallons, and well stir. Bottle this off, and when required for use dilute with three times its bulk of warm soft water, and spray over the trees in the early spring just before the buds burst. For mites (Acari) sulphur is the essential ingredient of a spray. Liver of sulphur has been found to be the best form, especially when mixed with a paraffin emulsion. Bud mites (Phytoptidae, fig. 6) are of course not affected. Sulphur wash is made by adding to every 10 gallons of warm paraffin emulsion or paraffin-naphthalene-emulsion 7 oz. of liver of sulphur, and stirring until the sulphur is well mixed. This is applied as an ordinary spray. Nursery stock should always be treated, to kill scale, aphis and other pests which it may carry, by the gas treatment, particularly in the case of stock imported from a foreign climate. This treatment, both out of doors and under glass, is carried out as follows:—Cover the plants in bulk with a light gas-tight cloth, or put them in a special fumigating house, and then place 1 oz. of cyanide of potassium in lumps in a dish with water beneath the covering, and then pour 1 oz. of sulphuric acid over it (being careful not to inhale the poisonous fumes) for every 1000 cub. ft. of space beneath the cover. The gas generated, prussic acid, should be left to work for at least an hour before the stock is removed, when all forms of animal life will be destroyed.

Fig. 6.

—Bud Mites (

Phytoptidae

). A, Currant Bud Mite (

Phytoptus ribis

); B, Nut Bud Mite (

P. avellanae

).

For spraying, proper instruments must be used, by means of which the liquid is sent out over the plants in as fine a mist as possible. Numerous pumps and nozzles are now made by which this end is attained. Both horse and hand machines are employed, the former for hops and large orchards, the latter for bush fruit and gardens. In America, where trees in parks as well as orchards and gardens are treated, steam-power is sometimes used. Among the most important sprayers are the Strawson horse sprayers and the smaller Eclair and Notus knapsack pumps, carried on the back (fig. 7). The nozzles for “mistifying” the wash most in use are known as the Vermorel and Riley’s, which can be fitted to any length of tubing, so as to reach any height, and can be turned in any direction. The pumps in the machine keep the insecticide constantly mixed, and at the same time force the wash with great strength through the nozzle, and so to the exterior, as a fine mist; every part of the plant is thus affected.

Fig. 7.

—Knapsack Sprayer for Liquid Insecticides.

Beneficial Insects have also to be considered in economic entomology. They are of two kinds—(1) those that help to keep down an excess of other insects by acting either as parasites or by being insectivorous in habit; and (2) insects of economic value, such as the bee and silkworm. Amongst the most important friends to the farmer and gardener are the Hymenopterous families of ichneumon flies (Ichneumonidae and Braconidae); the Dipterous families Syrphidae and Tachinidae; the Coleopterous families Coccinellidae and Carabidae; and the Neuropterous Hemerobiidae, or lace-wing flies. Ichneumon flies lay their eggs either in the larvae or ova of other insects, and the parasites destroy their host. In this way the Hessian fly is doubtless kept in check in Europe, and the aphides meet with serious hindrance to their increase. If a number of plant-lice are examined, a few will be found looking like little pearls; these are the dried skins of those that have been killed by Ichneumonidae. The Syrphidae, or hover flies, are almost exclusively aphis-feeders in their larval stage. Tachina flies attack lepidopterous larvae. One of the most notable examples of the use of insect allies is the case of the Australian lady-bird, Vedalia cardinalis, which, in common with all lady-birds, feeds off Aphidae and Coccidae. The Icerya scale (Icerya purchasi) imported into America ruined the orange groves, but its enemy, the Vedalia, was also imported from Australia, and counteracted its abnormal increase with such great results that the crippled orange groves are now once more profitable.

(F. V. T.)

ECONOMICS (from the Gr. οἰκονομική, sc. τέχνη, from οἶκος, a house, and νόμος, rule,—the “art of household management”), the general term, with its synonym “political economy,” for the science or study of wealth (welfare) and its production, applicable either to the individual, the family, the State, or in the widest sense, the world. How far the same considerations apply to all these spheres is one of the problems of economic thought in its widest sense. The term “economy” (q.v.) by itself, which should strictly mean the art of applying money (or wealth) wisely, has commonly come to mean the art of saving money, or spending as little as possible. In practice the study of “political” economy is mainly devoted to the sphere of the State; the welfare of the individual as a member of the State, and of the State in its relation to the world, being internal aspects of the prosperity of the State itself. Economics thus includes the discussion of all the numerous factors which make life profitable, whether to the nation or to the business, or to the individual man. It may be conceived either as an historical science (What principles have in fact paid?), or as an abstract science (What are the true principles which must pay, presupposing an ideal?). Economists at different times have studied both aspects, according to their lights, and influenced by historical conditions of philosophic thought. A text-book on economics necessarily deals, therefore, with the whole subject in a manner which need not here be followed, since separate articles are devoted in this work to the biographies of writers on economics, and also to the principal economic questions involved, under their own headings. In this article we propose therefore to confine ourselves to discussing the character and subject-matter of the science, indicating its relation to other sciences, and explaining the methods by which economists reach their conclusions.

We understand by economics the science which investigates the manner in which nations or other larger or smaller communities, and their individual members, obtain food, clothing, shelter and whatever else is considered desirable or necessary for the maintenance and improvement of the conditions of life. It is thus the study of the life of communities with special reference to one side of their activity. It necessarily involves the scientific examination of the structure and organization of the community or communities in question; their history, their customs, laws and institutions; and the relations between their members, in so far as they affect or are affected by this department of their activity.

At the root of all economic investigation lies the conception of the standard of life of the community. By this expression we do not mean an ideal mode of living, but the habits and requirements of life generally current in a community or grade of society at a given period. The standard of life of the ordinary well-to-do middle class in England, for example, includes not only food, clothing and shelter of a kind different in many respects from that of a similar class in other countries and of other classes in England, but a highly complicated mechanism, both public and private, for ministering to these primary needs, habits of social intercourse, educational and sanitary organization, recreative arrangements and many other elements. Many influences operating for a long period of time on the character and the environment of a class go to determine its standard of life. In a modern industrial community it is possible to express this standard fairly accurately for the purposes of economic investigation in terms of money (q.v.). But it is doubtful whether the most complete investigation would ever enable us to include all the elements of the standard of life in a money estimate. The character, tastes and capacity for management of different individuals and groups differ so widely that equal incomes do not necessarily imply identity of standard. In the investigation of past times, the incommensurate elements of well-being are so numerous that merely money estimates are frequently misleading. The conception of the standard of life involves also some estimate of the efforts and sacrifices people are prepared to make to obtain it; of their ideals and character; of the relative strength of the different motives which usually determine their conduct. But no carefully devised calculus can take the place of insight, observation and experience. The economist should be a man of wide sympathies and practical sagacity, in close touch with men of different grades, and, if possible, experienced in affairs.

It is evident that no permanent classification is possible of what is or is not of economic significance. No general rules, applicable to all times, can be laid down as to what phenomena must be examined or what may be neglected Character of subject-matter. in economic inquiry. The different departments of human activity are organically connected, and all facts relating to the life of a community have a near or remote economic significance. For short historical periods, indeed, many phenomena are so remotely connected with the ordinary business of life that we may ignore them. But at any moment special causes may bring into the field of economic inquiry whole departments of life which have hitherto been legitimately ignored. In times past, biblical exegesis, religious ideals, and ecclesiastical organization, the purely political aims of statesmen, chance combinations of party politics and the intrigues of diplomatists, class prejudice, social conventions, apparently sudden changes of economic policy, capricious changes of fashion—all these causes and many others have exerted a direct and immediate influence on the economic life of the community. In our own day we have had many illustrations of the manner in which special circumstances may at once bring an almost unnoticed series of scientific investigations into direct and vital relation with the business world. The economist must, therefore, not only be prepared to take account of the physical features of the world, the general structure and organization of the industry and commerce of different states, the character of their administration and other important causes of economic change. He must be in touch with the actual life of the community he is studying, and cultivate “that openness and alertness of the mind, that sensitiveness of the judgment, which can rapidly grasp the significance of at first sight unrelated discoveries or events.”

Some people are of opinion that the factors to be taken account of in economic investigation are so numerous that progress on these lines is impossible. It would certainly be impossible if we had to begin de novo to construct the whole fabric of economic science. But, as we shall see, it is no more necessary to do this in the world of science than it is in the world of business or politics. There is in existence a vast store of accumulated knowledge, and few, if any, departments of economics have been left quite unilluminated by the researches of former generations. Progress is the result of adaptation rather than reconstruction. It must be remembered also that economic work in modern times is carried on by consciously or unconsciously associated effort, and although it must always require high qualities of judgment, capacity and energy, many of the difficulties which at first sight appear so insuperable give way when they are attacked. In some ways also the study of highly developed organizations like the modern industrial state is simpler than that of earlier forms of society.

In the earliest times for which we have abundant material the economic life of England had already reached in certain directions a high degree of complexity. Even in the rural districts, manorial records reveal the existence of a great variety of classes and groups of persons engaged in the performance of economic functions. The lord of the manor with his officials and retainers, the peasantry bound to him by ties of personal dependence and mutual rights and obligations, constituted a little world, in which we can watch the play of motives and passions not so dissimilar as we are sometimes led to believe Ancient and modern conditions in England. from those of the great modern world. In many a country district the gradations of social rank were more continuous, the opportunities of intercourse more frequent, and the capacity for organization greater than in modern times. The manorial accounts were kept with precision and detail, and we are told that a skilled official could estimate to the utmost farthing the value of the services due from the villein to his lord. The manor was indeed self-sufficient and independent in the sense that it could furnish everything required by the majority of the inhabitants, and that over the greater part of rural England production was not carried on with a view to a distant market. But in the earliest times the manor was subjected to external influences of great importance. Vast areas of the country were in fact under the single control of a territorial lord or an ecclesiastical foundation. Every manor composing these great fiefs was likely to be affected by the policy or the character of the administration of the feudal lord, and he, again, by the policy or the difficulties, the strength or the weakness, of the central government. Foreign trade and foreign intercourse were undeveloped, but their influence was in historical times never entirely absent, while the influence of Roman law and the Christian Church constantly tended to modify the manorial organization. In the towns the division of labour had proceeded much further than in the rural districts, and there were in existence organized bodies, such as the Gild Merchant and the crafts, whose functions were primarily economic. But one of the most striking characteristics of town life in the middle ages was the manner in which municipal and industrial privileges and responsibilities were interwoven. In modern times the artisan, however well trained, efficient and painstaking he may be, does not, in virtue of these qualities, enjoy any municipal or political privileges. By means of his trade union, co-operative society or club he may gain some experience in the management of men and business, and in so far as the want of a sufficient income does not constitute an insuperable difficulty, he may share in the public life of the country. But in his character as artisan he enjoys no municipal or political privileges. In the middle ages this differentiation of the industrial, municipal and political life had not taken place, and in order to understand the working of at first sight purely economic regulations it is necessary to make a close study of the functions of local government. But this, after all, does not carry us very far. From the very nature of the records in which we study the town life of the middle ages, it follows that we obtain from them only a one-sided view. No one knows what proportion of the industrial population was included in the organized gilds, or how complete was the control exercised by these bodies over their members. Elaborate regulations were in force, but no one knows how elastic they were in practice. Medieval Englishmen were particularly apt to put their aspirations into a legal form, and then rest satisfied with their achievement. The number of regulations is scarcely to be regarded as a test of their administrative success. Further, as the country became more consolidated and the central government extended its authority over economic affairs, new regulations came into force, new organs of government appeared, which were sometimes in conflict, sometimes in harmony, with the existing system, and it becomes for a time far more difficult to obtain a clear view of the actual working of economic institutions. Thus the study of the economic life of the middle ages is one of the most complicated subjects which can engage the attention of man. It is impossible to carry the process of isolation very far. The different threads of social activity are so closely interwoven that we cannot follow any one for very long without forming wrong impressions, and it becomes necessary to turn back and study others which seemed at first sight unrelated to the subject of our investigations. Under an apparently uniform and stable system of social regulation there was much variation and movement, the significance of which it is impossible to estimate. Materials for forming such an estimate no doubt exist, but before doing so we have to study in infinite detail a vast number of separate manors, municipalities or other separate economic areas. This involves great industry on the part of many scientific workers. Meanwhile we can illustrate the economic life of the middle ages, describe its main features, indicate the more important measures of public policy and draw attention to some of the main lines of development.

It is only as we approach more modern times that the conditions of economic study are realized and economic science, as we understand it, becomes possible. Those conditions are: (i.) the life of the state or other community Conditions of economic science. or communities we are studying must be so differentiated that we can isolate those functions which are wholly or predominantly economic. The “separation of employments” is not only a condition of economic efficiency; it was necessary before we could have an economic science. (ii.) We must be in a position so far to understand and estimate the character and motives of different classes and groups in these communities that we can rightly interpret their action. This condition cannot be realized without great difficulty, for “economic motives” are very different in different periods, nations and classes, and even for short periods of time in the same country are modified by the influence of other motives of an entirely different order. In studying the economic history of the 18th century, for example, it is not enough to assume with Defoe that “gain is the design of merchandise.” We have to be saturated, as it were, with 18th-century influences, so that we can realize the conditions in which industry and trade were carried on, before we can rightly explain the course of development. In our own day labour disputes, to take another example, can scarcely ever be resolved into a question of merely pecuniary gain or loss. The significance of the amount of money involved varies greatly for different trades, and can only be understood by reference to the character and habits of the people concerned. But questions of sentiment, shop-feeling and trade customs invariably play an important part. (iii.) Economics can never lead to anything but hypothetical results unless we not only realize that we must “take account of” other than the purely economic factors, but also give due weight and significance to these factors. No explanation of the industrial situation in Germany, for example, would be intelligible or satisfactory even from the economic point of view which ignored the significance of the political conditions which Germans have to deal with. So, again, it is impossible to make a useful comparative estimate of the advantages and disadvantages of the transport systems of England, the United States and Germany, unless we keep constantly in view the very different geographical, military and political conditions which these systems have to satisfy. (iv.) Sufficient information must be available to enable us to test the validity of our hypotheses and conclusions. Whatever “method” of economic investigation we employ, we must at every stage see how far our reasoning is borne out by the actual experience of life. This obvious condition of scientific inquiry is very far from being completely realized even at the present time. It implies the existence of a well-trained class engaged in the work of collecting information, and much organization both by the state and private bodies. These four conditions can be reduced to two. The community we are studying must have reached such a stage of development that its economic functions and those immediately cognate to them form a well-defined group, and adequate means must be available so that we can, as it were, watch the performance of these functions and test our hypotheses and conclusions by observation and experience.

It is easy to understand, therefore, why we trace the beginnings of economics, so far as England is concerned, in the 16th century, and why the application of strict scientific tests in this subject of human study has become possible only in comparatively recent times. Medieval economics was little more than a casuistical system of elaborate and somewhat artificial rules of conduct. From the close of the middle ages until the middle of the 18th century thousands of pamphlets and other works on economic questions were published, but the vast majority of the writers have little or no scientific importance. Their works frequently contain information given nowhere else, and throw much light on the state of opinion in the age in which they wrote. It is also possible to find in them many anticipations of the views of the economists of later times; but such statements were as a rule generated merely by the heat of controversy on some measure or event of practical importance, and when the controversy died down were seldom regarded or incorporated in a scientific system. Trade bias, personal impressions and guesswork took the place of scientific method. This was inevitable in the absence of trustworthy information on an adequate scale, and from the immediately practical aims of the writers. But from the end of the 17th century economics has been definitely recognized as a subject of scientific study.

In modern times the conditions which have made economic science possible have also made it necessary. While it is impossible to give a strictly economic interpretation of the earlier history of nations, economic interests Necessity of economic science. so govern the life and determine the policy of modern states that other forces, like those of religion and politics, seem to play only a subsidiary part, modifying here and there the view which is taken of particular questions, but not changing in any important degree the general course of their development. This may be, in the historical sense, merely a passing phase of human progress, due to the rapid extension of the industrial revolution to all the civilized and many of the uncivilized nations of the world, bringing in its train the consolidation of large areas, a similarity of conditions within them, and amongst peoples and governments a great increase in the strength of economic motives. When the world has settled down to the new conditions, if it ever does so, we may be confronted with problems similar to those which our forefathers had to solve. But, for the time, if we know the economic interests of nations, classes and individuals, we can tell with more accuracy than ever before how in the long run they will act. Public policy therefore requires the closest possible study of the economic forces which are moulding the destinies of the great nations of the world. In most civilized countries except England this is recognized, and adequate provision is made for the study of economic science. But the subject is not only of immediate concern to the state in its corporate and public capacity. The neglect of it in the domain of private business can now only lead to disastrous results. To quote from a useful work (National Education: a Symposium, 1901), “the commercial supremacy of England was due to a variety of causes, of which superior intelligence, in the ordinary business sense, was not the most important. Her insular position, continuity of political development and freedom from domestic broils played an important part in bringing about a steady and continuous growth of industry and manufactures for several generations before the modern era. The great wars of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, which arrested the growth of continental nations, gave England the control of the markets of the world. When peace was restored, England enjoyed something in the nature of a monopoly. The competition of France ceased for a time to be an important factor. What is now the German empire was a mere congeries of small states, waging perpetual tariff wars upon each other. In the old Prussian provinces alone there were fifty-three different customs frontiers, and German manufactures could not develop until the growth of the Zollverein brought with it commercial consolidation, internal freedom and greater homogeneity of economic conditions. The industries of the United States were in their infancy. Thus the productive power of England was unrivalled, and her manufactures and business men, under a régime rapidly approximating to complete freedom of trade, could reap the full advantages to be derived from the possession of great national resources and production by machinery. Commercial supremacy required not so much highly trained intelligence amongst manufacturers and merchants as keen business instinct and a certain rude energy. In the last generation all that has changed, and the change is of a permanent character. The struggle of the future must inevitably be between a number of great nations, more or less equally well equipped, carrying on production by the same general methods, each one trying to strengthen its industrial and commercial position by the adoption of the most highly developed machinery, and all the methods suggested by scientific research, policy or experience. Under these conditions, it is no longer possible for the individual merchant, or for small groups of merchants, to acquaint themselves, by personal experience alone, with more than a fractional part of the causes which affect the business in which they are engaged. The spread of the modern industrial system has brought with it the modern state, with its millions of consumers, its vast area, its innumerable activities, its complicated code of industrial and commercial law. At the same time, the revolution in the means of transport and communication has destroyed, or is tending to destroy, local markets, and closely interwoven all the business of the world. Events in the most distant countries, industrial and commercial movements at first sight unrelated to the concerns of the individual merchant, now exert a direct and immediate influence upon his interests. The technical training of the factory or the office, the experience of business, the discharge of practical duties, necessary as they are, do not infallibly open the mind to the large issues of the modern business world, and can never confer the detailed acquaintance with facts and principles which lie outside the daily routine of the individual, but are none the less of vital importance.” Economics, therefore, under modern conditions, is not only a subject which may usefully occupy the attention of a leisured class of scientific men. It should form part of the training of educated men of all classes, on grounds of public policy and administrative and business efficiency.

The relations between economics and other sciences cannot be stated in a very general form. They vary for different periods, and are not the same for all branches of economics. There is no subject of human study which Relations between economics and other sciences. may not be at some time or other of economic significance, and anything which affects the character, the ideals or the environment of man may make it necessary to modify our assumptions and our reasoning with regard to his conduct in economic affairs. But if the economist, while studying one side of man’s activities, must also cultivate all other branches of human learning, it is obvious that no substantial progress can be made. The economist frankly assumes the reality of the existing world and takes men as they are, or as they have been if he is studying past times. His assumptions are based upon ordinary observation and experience, and are usually accurate in proportion to his practical shrewdness and sagacity, so that he is not interested in the speculative flights of philosophy, except in so far as they influence or have influenced conduct. In times past, and to a less extent in our own day, philosophical conceptions have formed the basis of great systems of politics and economics. The historical relations between philosophy and economics are of great importance in tracing the development of the latter, and have done much to determine its present form. But the modern conception of society or the state owes more to biology than philosophy, and actual research has destroyed more frequently than it has justified the assumptions of the older philosophical school. Experimental psychology may in course of time have an important bearing on economics, but the older science cannot be said to be of much significance except in its historical aspects. Ethics is in much the same position. That is, it is possible to conceive of an ethical science which would extend considerably our knowledge of economic affairs, but no important new principle or original discovery, relevant to economic investigation, has come from that quarter in recent years, and at present ethics has more to learn from economics than the latter has from ethics. It is in the adaptation of biological conceptions and methods, in the positive contributions of jurisprudence, law and history, in the rigorous application, where possible, of quantitative tests, that the explanation of the present position of economics is to be found. Mathematics has influenced the form and the terminology of the science, and has sometimes been useful in analysis; but mathematical methods of reasoning, in their application to economics, while possessing a certain fascination, are of very doubtful utility.

There is no method of investigation which is peculiarly economic or of which economics has the monopoly. In every age economists have applied the methods ordinarily in use amongst scientific men. There would probably Method of economic investigation. have been no controversy at all on this subject but for the fact that economics was elaborated into systematic form, and made the basis of practical measures of the greatest importance, long before the remarkable development in the 19th century of historical research, experimental science and biology. The application of the a priori method in economics was an accident, due to its association with other subjects and the general backwardness of other sciences rather than any exceptional and peculiar character in the subject-matter of the science itself. The methods applied to economics in the 18th and the early part of the 19th century were no more invented with a special view to that subject than the principles of early railway legislation, in the domain of practical policy, were devised with a special view to what was then a new means of transport. As a matter of fact, discussions of method and the criticism of hypotheses and assumptions are very rarely found in early economic works. It is only by reference to the prevailing ideas in philosophy and politics that we can discover what was in the minds of their authors. The growth of a science is much like the growth of a constitution. It proceeds by adaptation and precedent. The scientific and historical movement of the 19th century was revolutionary in character. When it began to affect economics, many people were afraid that the whole fabric of science would be destroyed and the practical gains it had achieved, jeopardized. These fears were justified, in so far as those who entertained them shut their eyes to everything new and assumed an attitude of no compromise. Where the newer methods were assimilated, the position of economics was strengthened and its practical utility increased. General discussion of method, however, is rarely profitable. In all branches of economics, even in what is called the pure theory, there is an implied reference to certain historical or existing conditions of a more or less definite character; to the established order of an organized state or other community, at a stage of development which in its main features can be recognized. In all economic investigation assumptions must be made, but we must see that they are legitimate in view of the actual life and character of the community or communities which are the subject of investigation. In common with other sciences, economics makes use of “abstractions”; but if for some problems we employ symbolic processes of reasoning, we must keep clearly in view the limits of their significance, and neither endow the symbols with attributes they can never possess, nor lose sight of the realities behind them. Every hypothesis must be tested by an appeal to the facts of life, and modified or abandoned if it will not bear examination, unless we are convinced on genuine evidence that it may for a time be employed as a useful approximation, without prejudice to the later stages of the investigation we are conducting.

We shall best illustrate the character and method of economic reasoning by examples, and for that purpose let us take first of all a purely historical problem, namely, the effect on the wage-earners of the wages clauses of the Statute of An illustration of economic method. Apprenticeship (1563). It is at once obvious that we are dealing not with an abstract scheme of regulation in a hypothetical world, but with an act of parliament nominally in force for two hundred and fifty years, and applicable to a great variety of trades whose organization and history can be ascertained. The conclusions we reach may or may not modify any opinions we have formed as to the manner in which wages are determined under modern conditions. For the time being such opinions are irrelevant to the question we are investigating, and the less they are in our minds the better. There is no reason why we should apply to this particular act a different method of inquiry from that we should apply to any other of the numerous acts, of more or less economic importance, passed in the same session of parliament. The first step is to see whether there is a prima facie case for inquiry, for many acts of parliament have been passed which have never come into operation at all, or have been administered only for a short time on too limited a scale to have important or lasting results. The justices were authorized to fix wages at the Easter quarter sessions. Did they exercise their powers? To answer this question we must collect the wages assessments sanctioned by the magistrates. This is a perfectly simple and straightforward operation, involving nothing more than familiarity with records and industry in going through them. Without having recourse to any elaborate process of economic reasoning, by confining our attention to one simple question, namely, what happened, we can establish conclusions of the greatest interest to economic historians and, further, define the problem we have to investigate. We can show, for example: (1) that the Statute of Apprenticeship did not stand alone; it was one of a long series of similar measures, beginning more than two centuries before, which in their turn join on to the municipal and gild regulations of the middle ages; one of an important group of statutes, more or less closely interwoven throughout their history, administered by local authorities whose functions had grown largely in connexion with this legislation and the gradual differentiation of the trades and callings to which it related. (2) That wages were regulated with much greater frequency during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. than at any later period. (3) That they were regulated in some counties and not in others. (4) That in the counties and towns where they were regulated the action of the magistrates was in general spasmodic, and rarely continuous for a long series of years. (5) That the magistrates used their powers sometimes to raise wages, sometimes to force them down. (6) That the local variations of wages and prices were what we should call excessive, so that the standard of comfort in one district was very different from that of others. (7) That the wages assessments group themselves round certain short periods, coincident in many instances with high prices, increase of poverty, and other causes of exceptional action. (8) That what we may call, with the above limitations, the effective period of the act terminates with the outbreak of the Civil War. (9) That subsequent to that period organic changes in the industries affected, coupled with the incompetence of parliament to adapt the old legislation to new conditions, and the growing acceptance of the doctrine of laissez faire, brought about a general disuse of the statute, though isolated attempts to enforce it were made and new acts applicable to certain trades were passed in the 18th century. (10) For more than one hundred years before the repeal of the act, trade unions and other forms of voluntary association amongst wage-earners, combinations amongst employers, collective agreements, customary regulations, were established in many of the important trades of the country. But these conclusions, after all, suggest more difficulties than they remove, for they show that our inquiry, instead of presenting certain well-marked features which can be readily dealt with, has to be split up into a number of highly specialized studies: the investigation of rates of wages, prices and the standard of comfort in different localities, bye-industries, regularity of employment, the organization of particular trades, the economic functions of local authorities, apprenticeship and a host of other subjects. Moreover, all these subjects hang together, so that it seems impossible to come to a decision about one of them without knowing all about the others.

It is a comparatively simple thing to state the question to which we want an answer, but extremely difficult to define the exact nature of the evidence which will constitute a good answer; easy enough to say we must try hypothesis after hypothesis, and test each one by an appeal to the facts, but a man may easily spend his life in this sort of thing and still leave to his descendants nothing more than a legacy of rejected hypotheses. Every volume of records we look through contains a mass of detailed information on the economic life of England in the period we are studying. How much of it is relevant to the subject of inquiry? What is to be the principle of selection? How shall we determine the relative weight and importance of different kinds of relevant evidence? As in modern problems, so in those of past times, a man requires for success qualities quite distinct from those conferred by merely academic training and the use of scientific methods. A correct sense of proportion and the faculty of seizing upon the dominant factors in an historical problem are the result partly of the possession of certain natural gifts in which many individuals and some nations are conspicuously wanting, partly of general knowledge of the working of the economic and political institutions of the period we are studying, partly of what takes the place of practical experience in relation to modern problems, namely, detailed acquaintance with different kinds of original sources and the historical imagination by which we can realize the life and the ideals of past generations. These qualities are required all the more because, in order to make any further progress with such an inquiry as we have suggested, we have deliberately to make use of abstraction as an instrument of investigation.

Let us see how this will work out. Suppose we have selected one of the numerous subsidiary problems suggested by the general inquiry, and obtained such full and complete information about one particular industry that we The plan of a general theory. can tabulate the wages of the workers for a long series of years. We may do the same for other industries, some of them coming under the Statute of Apprenticeship, others not. If all the industries belong to one economic area over which, so far as we can tell from general statistics of wages and prices, and other information, fairly homogeneous conditions prevailed, we may be able to reach some useful conclusions as to the operation of the act. But it would be absurd to suppose that we could reach those conclusions by simple reference to the trades themselves. We cannot assume that the fluctuations in wages were due to the action or inaction of magistrates without the most careful examination of the other influences affecting the trades. In economic affairs the argument post hoc propter hoc never leads to the whole truth, and is frequently quite misleading. We cannot suppose that the policy of the Merchant Adventurers’ Company had nothing to do with the woollen industry; that the export trade in woollen cloth was quite independent of the foreign exchanges and international trade relations in those times; that the effect on wages of the state of the currency, the influx of new silver, the character of the harvests, and many other influences can be conveniently ignored. In studying, therefore, such an apparently simple question as the effect of an act of parliament on wages in a small group of trades we want a general theory which we can use as a kind of index of the factors we have to consider.

Assuming that we have in our minds this safeguard against loose thinking and neglect of important factors, the investigation of the special problems arising out of the general inquiry resolves itself into a careful definition of each Difficulties due to want of evidence. problem we wish to deal with, and the collection, tabulation and interpretation of the evidence. In most cases the interpretation of the facts is far from obvious, and we have to try several hypotheses before we reach one which will bear the strain of a critical examination in the light of further evidence. But at this stage in historical investigation it is generally the want of evidence of a sufficiently complete and continuous character, rather than difficulties of method, which forces us to leave the problem unsolved. It is, for instance, practically impossible to obtain reliable evidence as to the regularity of employment in any industry in the 17th century, and the best approximations and devices we can invent are very poor substitutes for what we really want. For this reason guesswork must continue to play an important part in economic history. But every genuine attempt to overcome its difficulties brings us into closer touch with the period we are examining; and though we may not be able to throw our conclusions into the form of large generalizations, we shall get to know something of the operation of the forces which determined the economic future of England; understand more clearly than our forefathers did, for we have more information than they could command, and a fuller appreciation of the issues, the broad features of English development, and be in a position to judge fairly well of the measures they adopted in their time. By comparing England with other countries we may be able in the distant future to reach conclusions of some generality as to the laws of growth, maturity and decay of industrial nations. But like the early statisticians of the 17th century, economic historians are the “beginners of an art not yet polished, which time may bring to more perfection.”

When we come to exclusively modern questions, there is no reason or necessity for a fundamental change of method. We cannot suppose that there occurred, at or about the commencement of the 19th century, a breach of The investigation of modern questions. historical continuity of such a character that institutions, customs, laws and social conventions were suddenly swept away, the bonds of society loosened, and the state and people of England dissolved into an aggregate of competing individuals. The adoption of machinery gradually revolutionized the methods of production; but in the first instance only certain industries were affected, and those not at the same time or in the same degree; old laws grown obsolete were repealed, but other laws affecting wage-earners and employers took their place, more complicated and elaborate than the Elizabethan code. Trade unions, so far from disappearing, were legalized, gathered strength from the changes in industrial organization, and nowhere became so powerful as in the most progressive industries; while other forms of combination appeared, incomparably stronger, for good or evil, than those of earlier times. But while we recognize these facts, we must not suppose that we have to study the action of men as though they were all enrolled in organized associations, or covered by stringent laws which were always obeyed. There has never been in the history of English industry such licence as we find in certain directions in the earlier part of the 19th century.

It is not in the decay of combination and monopoly or in the growth of competition that we must look for the distinctive characteristics of modern problems. A 17th-century monopoly was a very weak and ineffective instrument compared The distinctive features of modern problems. with a modern syndicate; the Statute of Apprenticeship was certainly not so widely enforced as the “common rules” of trade unions; and many of the regulations of past times, which look so complicated to modern eyes, were conditions of free enterprise rather than restraints upon it. It is due to the influence of the laisser faire doctrine that we regard law and regulation as a restraint on liberty. As a maxim for guidance in public affairs, laisser faire was genuinely relevant at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, when the Statute Book was cumbered with vexatious and obsolete laws. As an explanation of what has taken place in later years, or of the actual economic life of the present day, it is ludicrously inadequate. Competition, in the sense in which the word is still used in many economic works, is merely a special case of the struggle for survival, and, from its limitation, does not go far towards explaining the actual working of modern institutions. To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; to secure cheapness by lowering the expenses of production; to adopt the less expensive rather than the more expensive method of obtaining a given result—these and other maxims are as old as human society. Competition, in the Darwinian sense, is characteristic not only of modern industrial states, but of all living organisms; and in the narrower sense of the “higgling of the market” is found on the Stock Exchange, in the markets of old towns, in medieval fairs and Oriental bazaars. In modern countries it takes myriads of forms, from the sweating of parasitic trades to the organization of scientific research. Economic motives, again, are as varied as the forms of competition, and their development is coeval with that of human society. They have to be interpreted in every age in relation to the state of society, the other motives or ideals with which they are associated, the kind of action they inspire, and the means through which they operate. Apparently the same economic motives have led in the same age and in the same nation to monopoly and individual enterprise, protection and free trade, law and anarchy. In our own time they have inspired both the formation of trade combinations and attempts to break them up, hostility to all forms of state interference and a belief in collectivism.

The conditions which are peculiar to the modern world are the large numbers we have to deal with, the vast and fairly homogeneous areas in which justice is administered and property secured, and the enormously increased facilities for transport and communication. These conditions are of course not independent of each other, and they have brought in their train many consequences, some good and some bad. But they supply the bases for that general theory which, as we have seen, is indispensable in economic investigation. From the standpoint of general theory economic movements assume an impersonal character and economic forces operate like the forces of nature. Although economic motives have become more complex, they have just as much and no more to do with general economic reasoning and analysis than the causes of death with the normal expectation of life, or domestic ideals with the birth-rate. So far as we have anything to do with psychology at all, it is the psychology of crowds and not of individuals which we have to consider. If we study the economy of a village, the idiosyncrasies of every individual in it are of importance. If the village is replaced by a large area, inhabited by millions, with modern facilities of communication, it is a matter of observation and experience that for the purposes of general reasoning the idiosyncrasies of individuals may be neglected. Whether such large numbers have the character of the “economic man” of the early economists matters very little. All the assumptions we require are furnished by observation of people in the mass and the larger generalizations of statistics. Thus we can construct a kind of envelope of theory, which, by careful testing as we proceed, can be made to indicate in a general manner the reactions of one part of the activities of the economic world upon the others, and the interdependence of the several parts. From its very nature this general theory can never correspond strictly to the actual life and movement of any given state. It is useful and necessary, and plays somewhat the same part in economic investigation as ton-mile statistics do in the administration of a railway. To express in any language or to illustrate by any images, from a purely objective standpoint, the infinitely complicated movements of the actual world, is a task far beyond human capacity.

With the aid of this general theory the methods we have sketched in relation to historical problems apply with greater force to the special problems of modern times, and are rewarded with results more accurate, more fruitful, Application to modern problems. more relevant to difficulties which all civilized nations have to face, than those of historical research. To many minds the interest and usefulness of economics depend entirely on the application of these methods, for it is the actual working of economic institutions about which the statesman, the publicist, the business man and the artisan wish to know. Under the conditions we have described, many of the most interesting problems of our own time, when they are once defined, resolve themselves into statistical inquiries. But in most cases such an inquiry cannot be successfully carried out by a mere statistician. Definite economic problems can very rarely be dealt with by merely quantitative methods. In the tabulation and interpretation of statistical evidence, as in its collection, it is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of wide knowledge and experience. There is another very important instrument of investigation which can be used in our own time, but cannot be employed in historical research. Historical documents, however detailed, rarely show all the factors we have to deal with or fully explain a given situation. No sane person would suppose that the minutes of a modern legislative body explain the steps by which legislation has been passed, or the issues really involved. The ostensible cause of a modern labour dispute is frequently not the real or the most important cause. In modern problems we can watch the economic machine actually at work, cross-examine our witnesses, see that delicate interplay of passions and interests which cannot be set down or described in a document, and acquire a certain sense of touch in relation to the questions at issue which manuscripts and records cannot impart. We can therefore substitute sound diagnosis for guesswork more frequently in modern than in historical problems.

What then, it may be asked, becomes of the “old Political Economy”? Of what possible use are the works of the so-called classical writers, except in relation to the history of economics and the practical influence of theory in past times? If we take the mere popular view of what is meant by the “old Political Economy,” that is, that a generation or so ago economics was comprised in a neatly rounded set of general propositions, The “old political economy.” universally accepted, which could be set forth in a text-book and learnt like the multiplication table, it is not incumbent on the present generation to define its attitude at all. In this sense of the words, there was no faith delivered to our fathers which we are under any obligation to guard or even explain. If by the “old Political Economy” we mean the methods and conclusions of certain great writers, who stood head and shoulders above their contemporaries and determined the general character of economic science, we are still under no obligation to define the attitude of the present generation with regard to them. The fact that Adam Smith, with the meagre materials of the 18th century at his disposal, saw his way to important generalizations which later research has established on a firm basis, may enhance greatly the reputation of Adam Smith, but does not strengthen the generalizations. They stand or fall by the strength of the evidence for or against them. In the history of economics or the biography of Ricardo it is of interest to show that he anticipated later writers, or that his analysis bears the test of modern criticism; but no economist is under any obligation to defend Ricardo’s reputation, nor is the fact that a doctrine is included in his works to be taken as a demonstration of its truth. The appeal to authority cannot be permitted in economics any more than in chemistry, physics or astronomy. But the cases stated above suggest more or less false issues. There has been no revolution in economic science, and is not likely to be any. The question we have really to determine is how we can make the best use of the accumulated knowledge of past generations, and to do that we must look more closely into the economic science of the 19th century.

Any one who has taken the trouble to trace the history of one of the modern schools of economists, or of any branch of economic science, knows how difficult it is to say when it began. “Anticipations” of method and doctrine can generally be found by the diligent investigator in the economic literature of his own or a foreign country. So that cross-sections of the stream of economic thought will reveal the existence, at different times, in varying proportions and at different stages of development, of most of the modern “schools.” Again, the classification of an economic bibliography at once shows how varied has been the character of economic investigation, ranging from the most abstract speculation on the one hand to almost technical studies of particular trades on the other. Of the great army of writers who flourished in the first half of the 19th century some were closely identified with the utilitarian school, and the majority were influenced in a greater or less degree by the prevailing ideas of that school. Others, however, were hostile to it. In many works, such as those of a statistical or historical character, there are frequently to be found passages which could have been written in no other period, but are only of the nature of ejaculations and do not affect the argument. In stating the position of economics during this time we cannot ignore all writers, except these who belonged to one group, however eminent that group may have been, simply because they did not represent the dominant ideas of the period, and exercised no immediate and direct influence on the movement of economic thought. We must include the pioneers of the historical school, the economic historians, the socialists, the statisticians, and others whose contributions to economics are now appreciated, and without whose labours the science as we know it now would have been impossible. If we take this broadly historical view of the progress of economics, it is obvious that even in England there was no general agreement, during the 19th century, as to the methods most appropriate to economic investigation.

Suppose, now, we ignore the writers who were inaugurating new methods, investigating special problems or laboriously collecting facts, and concentrate attention on the dominant school, with its long series of writers from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill. It is the work of these writers which people have in mind when they speak of the “old Political Economy.” There are several quite distinct questions we can ask with regard to them. That they must be studied closely by every one who wishes to follow the history of economics goes without saying. That they must be studied by the economic historian is equally clear, owing to their practical influence and the fact that they furnished the theoretical bases of much of the economic policy of the 19th century. This is true whether their method is good or bad, whether their conclusions are true or false. It is not so easy to determine their relevance and usefulness in relation to distinctively modern problems, or to indicate within what limits their work is of permanent value, and we can only deal with these questions in their more general aspects.

It must be clear to every observer that the economists of the classical period, with the one exception of Adam Smith, will speedily share the fate of nearly all scientific writers. They will be forgotten, and their books will not be read. Adams Smith’s Wealth of Nations, if it has ever been, has long ceased to be a scientific text-book. Whether a modern economist accepts his views or not is of no importance. There is probably not a single chapter in the Wealth of Nations which would be thoroughly endorsed by any living economist. But the reputation of the book and its author is quite independent of considerations of this kind. The Wealth of Nations is one of the great books of the world, many of the sayings of which are likely to be more frequently quoted in the future than they have been in the 19th century. Malthus is already an author whose name is probably more widely known than that of any other economist, but whose works are rarely read, and studied only by a small proportion of the few people who write books on the history of economic theory. Of economic students, many are unaware of the fact that he wrote any other book than the Essay on the Principle of Population, and what is of permanent importance in that work is contained in the generalization which it suggested to Darwin. Moreover, modern economists, while accepting in the main the general tenor of Malthus’s theory of population, would not agree with his statement of it. Like Malthus, Ricardo owes his reputation very largely to the theory associated with his name, though it has long ceased to be stated precisely in the terms he employed. But there are very few people in the world who have made a careful study of his works; and although his theory of rent has a wide and increasing application in economics, it is not comparable in general scientific importance with Malthus’s theory of population. It is already impossible to take J.S. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy as a text-book. Important as it was for thirty or forty years, it will soon be as little read as M’Culloch’s Principles. For the rest of the economists of this period, it is difficult to see how they can escape oblivion. When the generation whose economic training was based upon J.S. Mill has died out, the relevance of the “old Political Economy” is not likely to be a question of any interest to ordinary educated men and women, or even to the great mass of economic students.

The explanation of this decay of interest does not lie upon the surface. It is frequently supposed that the influence of the “old Political Economy” has been gradually undermined by the attacks of the historical school. But great as the achievements of this school have been, it has not developed any scientific machinery which can take the place of theory in economic investigation. If our view is correct that, broadly speaking, the two ways of regarding economic questions are complementary rather than mutually exclusive, there does not seem to be any reason why the growth of the historical school should have been destructive of the “old Political Economy” if it had been well founded. The use of the historical method has, in fact, raised more reputations than it has destroyed, because by keeping carefully in view the conditions in which economic works have been written, it has shown that many theories hastily condemned as unsound by a priori critics had much to be said for them at the time when they were propounded. This observation is true not only of old-world writers like the Mercantilists, but also of Ricardian economics. No one is concerned to prove that the Ricardian economics applies to the manorial system, and it is generally supposed at any rate that the world has been approximating more and more nearly during the last century to the conditions assumed in most of the reasoning of that school. On the principles we have explained, therefore, the Ricardian economics should supply just that body of general theory which is required in the investigation of modern economic problems, and the reputation of at any rate the leading writers should be as great as ever. It would be of immense advantage from a scientific point of view if this could be taken for granted, if for a time the work of the classical economists could be considered final so far as it goes, and for the purposes of investigation regarded as the theoretical counterpart of the modern industrial system. This assumption, however, has been made quite impossible, not by the historical school, but by the criticism and analysis of economists in the direct line of the Ricardian succession.

Modern economic criticism and analysis has destroyed the authority of the “old Political Economy” as a scientific system. The assumptions, the definitions, the reasoning, the conclusions of the classical writers have been ruthlessly overhauled. Defects in their arguments have been exposed to view by those who are most concerned to defend their reputation. Writers with none of the prejudices of the historical school, but with the cold and remorseless regard for logic of the purely objective critic, have pointed out serious inconsistencies here, the omission of important factors there, until very little of the “old Political Economy” is left unscathed. In fact, there never was a scientific system at all. What was mistaken for it was fashioned in the heat of controversy by men whose interests were practical rather than scientific, who could not write correct English, and revealed in their reasoning the usual fallacies of the merely practical man. So the “old Political Economy” lies shattered. It is useless to suppose that this destructive criticism from within can be neutralized by generously sprinkling the pages of the classical writers with interpretation clauses. This may serve to show that the ideals of our youth were not without justification; but the younger generation, which does not care about our ideals, and looks to the future rather than the past, will not read annotated editions of old books, however eminent their authors. If the Ricardian school of economists had been merely philosophers, or even a group like the French physiocrats, this state of things might be regarded with equanimity. We might assume that criticism and analysis had separated the wheat from the chaff in their writings, that everything of permanent value had probably been preserved and incorporated in the works of later economists. But the character of much of their work makes this assumption impossible. It is, in fact, quite true that many of them were more interested in practical aims than in the Ricardo’s limitations. advancement of economic science. We may talk of the assumptions implicitly involved in Ricardo’s works. In reality we do not know what those assumptions were; we only know what assumptions we should make in order to reach the same conclusions, and they may be very different from “the mind of Ricardo.” Ricardo’s works, in fact, do not explain a theoretical system, but contain the matured reflections, more or less closely reasoned, of a man of great mental power looking out on the world as it appeared to a business man experienced in affairs. The conclusions of such a work are of wider significance than the assumptions we attribute to the author would warrant. They are not expressed in terms which satisfy our canons of scientific accuracy. Dissected sentence by sentence, the book may be shown to be a mass of inconsistencies. If it has the misfortune to be systematized by an enthusiastic but dull and incompetent disciple, it may appear even absurd. But after all the misinterpretation of contemporaries and the destructive criticism of later times, the book as a whole leaves upon us an impression of peculiar strength and charm, and imparts a sense of the relations of things truer, because less mechanical, than the laboured reasoning of smaller men. Such is the character of much of the work of Ricardo and some of his contemporaries. We think that the decay of interest in these writers involves a real loss, and that students of modern problems may do worse than read Ricardo and his school. Some of the criticism of their works, necessary and useful as it has been, will probably be corrected later on by that breadth of view and sense of proportion which has enabled us to appreciate justly the achievements of lesser men in more remote times. But rehabilitation in accordance with the canons of historical justice will not restore the lost influence of the Ricardian school. Their achievements in the 19th century will be fully acknowledged, but the relevance of their work to the problems of the 20th century will be admitted less than at the present time.

In a subject like economics it must always be very difficult to decide how far a departure from the traditional form and expression of its main doctrines is necessary or desirable. No one who is really experienced in economic Economics a conservative science. investigation cares to emphasize the originality, still less the revolutionary character of his own work. It is much more likely than not that some principle which for the moment seems new, some distinction which we may flatter ourselves has not been observed before, has been pointed out over and over again by previous writers, although, owing to special circumstances, it may not have received the notice it deserved. Economics is therefore, on the whole, an intensely conservative science, in which new truths are cautiously admitted or incorporated merely as extensions or qualifications of those enunciated by previous writers. This procedure has its advantages, but it may easily become dangerous by destroying the influence of the science it is meant to preserve. It is not unlike the procedure of the canonists and casuists of the middle ages with regard to the doctrine of usury, by which the doctrine was to all appearances preserved intact while in reality it was stripped of all its original meaning by innumerable distinctions “over-curious and precise.” In the same way the doctrines of the classical economists may be adapted by interpretation clauses and qualifications the exact force of which cannot be tested or explained, so that we do not know whether the original proposition is to be considered substantially correct or not. The result will be that while the doctrines are apparently being brought into closer correspondence with the facts of life, they will in reality be made quite useless for practical purposes or economic investigation. It is easier to point out the danger than to suggest how it should be met. The position we have described is no doubt partly due to the unsettlement of economic opinion and the hostile criticism of old-established doctrines which has characterized the last generation. Or it may be the result of economic agnosticism, combined with unwillingness to cut adrift from old moorings. Whatever the cause, the complete restatement of economic theory, which some heroic persons demand, is clearly impossible, except on conditions not likely to be realized in the immediate future. The span of life is limited; the work requires an extensive knowledge of the economic literature of several countries and the general features of all the important departments of modern economic activity. In general theory special studies by other men cannot play the same part as they do in historical and statistical work. In historical and statistical investigation, or in special studies of particular subjects, it is possible, given the pecuniary means, to organize a whole army of skilled assistants, and with ordinary care to combine the results of their separate efforts. In general theory the inverse rule seems to prevail. There the unity of conception and aim, the firm grip of all the different lines of argument and their relation to each other, which are required, can only be given by a single brain. But no one individual can do original work over the whole field. He is lucky if he can throw new light on a few old propositions. For the rest, he can only, with the utmost caution, adopt the suggestions of other minds as qualifications of old doctrines, never feeling quite sure that he is right in doing so. A complete restatement could only be undertaken by a group of men, trained in much the same conditions, accustomed to think and work together, each one engaged on a special department, but all acting under the control of one master-mind. This is largely a question of the organization of economic studies, and it is of the greatest importance that, if possible, such an effort should be made to present in a connected form the best results of modern criticism and analysis.

Economics is unlike many other sciences in the fact that its claim to recognition must be based upon its practical utility, on its relevance to the actual life of the economic world, on its ability to unravel the social and economic Some recent developments of economic theory. difficulties of each generation, and to contribute to the progress of nations. The very effectiveness of modern criticism and analysis, which has brought great gains in almost all branches of economic theory, has made the science more difficult as a subject of ordinary study. The extensions, the changes or the qualifications, of old doctrines, which at any rate in the works of responsible writers are rarely made without good if not always sufficient reason, have modified very considerably the whole science, and weakened the confidence of ordinary educated men in its conclusions. In the case of many subjects this would matter very little, but in that of economics, which touches the ordinary life of the community at so many points, it is of great importance, especially at a time like the present, when economic questions determine the policy of great nations. The “economic man” of the earlier writers, with his aversion from labour and his desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences, has been abandoned by their successors, with the result that in the opinion of many good people altruistic sentiment may be allowed to run wild over the whole domain of economics. The “economic man” has, on the other hand, been succeeded by another creation almost as monstrous, if his lineaments are to be supposed to be those of the ordinary individual—a man, that is, who regulates his life in accordance with Gossen’s Law of Satiety, and whose main passion is to discover a money measure of his motives. It is extremely important to consider how far the economic conceptions based upon this view of the action of men in the ordinary business of life—such, for example, as the doctrine of marginal utility—depend for their truth and relevance on the fact that in economics we are dealing with large aggregates. The earlier writers generally assumed perfect mobility of labour and capital. No economist would deliberately make that assumption now unless he were dealing with some purely theoretical problem, for the solution of which it was legitimate at some stage in the reasoning. Many of the questions of the greatest practical importance at the present time, such as the competition between old and new methods of manufacturing commodities substantially the same in kind, and equally useful to the great body of consumers, arise largely from the immobility of capital or labour, or both of them. But it is obvious that if the assumption of perfect mobility is invalid, there is scarcely any economic doctrine identified with the earlier writers which may not require modification, in what degree it is impossible to say without very careful investigation. Much suggestive work on this subject of a general character is incorporated in economic books of the present day, but there is room for a whole series of careful monographs on a question of such fundamental importance. The same may be said of another subject, too frequently neglected by earlier writers, to which due significance has been given in the best recent work, namely, time in relation to value. It would perhaps be too much to say that the full consideration of this point has revolutionized the theory of value, but it has certainly created what seems almost a new science in close contact with the actual life of the modern world.

Some doctrines of the earlier economists, such as the Wages Fund Theory, are now practically abandoned, though it may be said that they contained a certain amount of truth. Others, which were considered of fundamental importance, owe their position in modern economics and the form in which they are stated to the “tradition of the elders.” If they could, by some happy chance, have been left for discovery by modern economists, they would without doubt have received different treatment, to the great advantage of economic science. Such a doctrine is the so-called Law of Diminishing Returns, which Mill considered “the most important proposition in Political Economy.” “Unless this one matter,” he says, “be thoroughly understood, it is to no purpose proceeding any further in our inquiry.” “Were the law different, nearly all the phenomena of the production and distribution of wealth would be other than they are.” On the other hand, Thorold Rogers, not to speak of earlier objectors, described the law as a “dismal and absurd theorem.” The opinions of present-day economists appear to fluctuate between these two extremes. The law may apparently be “a general rule” or “a tendency” which is liable to be “checked,” or a particular case of the law of the conservation of energy. If we go to Mill to discover what it is, we find that “it is not pretended that the law of diminishing return was operative from the beginning of society; and though some political economists may have believed it to come into operation earlier than it does, it begins quite early enough to support the conclusions they founded on it.” “It comes into operation at a certain and not very advanced stage in the progress of agriculture.” But this very important stage in the history of a nation is not defined or clearly illustrated. We are told that we can see “the law at work underneath the more superficial agencies on which attention fixes itself”; it “undergoes temporary suspension,” which may last indefinitely; and “there is another agency, in habitual antagonism” to it, namely, “the progress of civilization,” which may include every kind of human improvement. Mill apparently is not content with the confusion between “law” and “agency” or “force,” but opposes the one to the other. He is constantly speaking in terms which imply the conquering of one law by another, a habit from which his successors have not freed themselves; and the theory of natural processes which appears to have satisfied him, was that when two forces come into operation there is a partial or complete suspension of one by the other. In modern economics “fertility” has no very definite meaning. It may mean what is ordinarily understood by the word—climate, rainfall, railway rates or anything else except “indestructible powers of the soil.” To speak of “additional labour and capital” without reference to the kind and quality of the labour and capital, and the manner in which they are employed, organized and directed, throws very little light on agriculture. Every improvement involves, from a quantitative point of view, more or less of capital or of labour, so that it is the “antagonizing” influences, which are nearly all qualitative, which appear to be really important. It is therefore extraordinarily difficult at present to know what happens, or rather what would happen if it were not prevented, when a country reaches “the stage of diminishing returns”; what precisely it is which comes into operation, for obviously the diminishing returns are the results, not the cause; or how commodities “obey” a law which is always “suspended.” Possibly the present generation of English industrial history will furnish many illustrations of the law of diminishing returns. We can only say that it requires investigation and restatement.

Closely related to the law of diminishing returns is the Theory of Rent. No economic doctrine so well illustrates the achievements and the defects of modern economic analysis. Ricardo’s statement of the theory left upon the world an impression, not wholly just, of singular clearness. He employed the theory with wonderful success in unravelling the problems of his time. Its importance has not been seriously, or at any rate successfully, called in question. Treated at first as a doctrine peculiarly applicable to land, with a certain controverted relevance to other natural agents, it has been so extended that there is scarcely any subject of economic study in which we may not expect to find adaptations or analogies, so that Ricardo seemed to have discovered the key of economic knowledge. But it was discovered that there were no “indestructible powers of the soil”; that the fertility of land in a country like England is almost entirely the result of improvement at some time or other; that “advantage of situation” includes very much more than the words in their literal sense imply; that both “fertility” and “advantage of situation” include many kinds of differential advantage; that in some circumstances rent does not enter into the price of agricultural and other produce, and that in others it does. Moreover, the study of the theory of rent has had a very great influence on all branches of economics by destroying the notion that it is possible to draw sharp lines of distinction, or deal with economic conceptions as though they were entirely independent categories. That modern economic analysis is incomparably more accurate than that of earlier times there can be no question. But the net result of the development of the doctrine of rent is that all problems in which this factor appears, and they embrace the whole range of economic theory, must apparently be treated on their merits. In its modern form the doctrine is far too general to be serviceable without the closest scrutiny of all the facts relating to the particular case to which it is applied. To deal adequately with the numerous extensions or qualifications of these and other doctrines in the hands of modern economists would involve us in an attempt to do what we have already said is impossible except on conditions not at present realized. It is clear that in the interests of general economic theory we require a vast number of special studies before an adequate restatement can be undertaken.

It must be clearly recognized that the functions of economic science in the present requirements of the world cannot possibly; be discharged by treatises on economic theory. The relations between general theory and special studies Relations between general economics and special studies. conducted on the lines we have indicated have completely changed. General theory never has been, and in the nature of things never can be, the actual reflex of the life and movement of the economic world. It never has been, and never can be, more than an indication of the kind of thing which might be expected in a purely hypothetical world. When the aim of the man of affairs and the hypothesis of the economist was unrestricted competition, and measures were being adopted to realize it, general theory such as the classical economists provided was perhaps a sufficiently trustworthy guide for practical statesmen and men of business. If only people can be got to believe in them, a few abstract principles are quite enough to destroy an institution which it has taken centuries to create. But a new institution cannot be made on the same terms. The modern industrial system has brought with it an immense variety of practical problems which nations must solve on pain of industrial and commercial ruin. For these problems we want, not a few old-established general principles which no one seriously calls in question, but genuine constructive and organizing capacity, aided by scientific and detailed knowledge of particular institutions, industries and classes. Just as the historical school grew up along with the greatest constructive achievement of the 19th century, namely, the consolidation of Germany, so the application to modern problems of the methods of that school has been called forth by the constructive needs of the present generation. We have already shown how these methods, in their turn, require the aid of general theory, but not of a general theory which tries to do their work. In fact, every attempt to make it do so must inevitably fail. How can such a huge mass of general propositions as are necessarily included in a system of economics ever be thoroughly tested by an appeal to facts? If they are not so tested, the general theory will remain a general theory, of no practical use in itself, until the end of time. It they are to be tested, an indefinitely large number of special studies must be made, for which the original materials must be collected and examined. That is, original investigation of special problems has to be carried out on a more gigantic scale than any economist of the historical school ever dreamt of or the world requires, with the certain knowledge that at the end of it all the general theory will not correspond with the facts of life. For there is all the difference in the world between using a body of general theory as an indication of the factors to be considered in the study of a special problem, and undertaking special studies with a view to testing the general theory. If the necessary limitations of general economic theory are recognized, most of the difficulties we have noticed disappear. Now that the “industrial revolution” has extended practically all over the world, so that we have several countries carrying on production by modern methods, it is easily possible to sketch the main features of industrial and commercial organization at the present time, to describe the banking and currency systems of the principal nations, their means of transport and communication, their systems of commercial law and finance, and their commercial policy. It is true that at present very little work of this kind has been done in England, but innumerable books, many of them about England, have been written by thoroughly competent economists, in French, German and other languages. So that no great amount of original work is required for a reliable account of those general features of the modern system which should form the introduction to economics. The general theory which we require should be sketched in firm and clear outline, leaving the detailed qualifications of broad principles to special studies, where they can be dealt with if it is necessary or desirable, and examined by statistical and other tests. For such a general theory there is ample material in the economic literature of all civilized countries. It is of the utmost importance that the economic terms, which are also, though in many cases with an entirely different meaning, the terms of business and commerce, should as far as possible be used in their common and ordinary English sense: that they should correspond in meaning with the same words when used in description, in law, accountancy and ordinary business. This is no doubt a difficult matter. But some change in this direction is necessary both in the interests of the science itself and of its practical utility. All the materials for investigation, all the facts and figures from which illustrations are drawn, all methods of keeping accounts in England, assume the ordinary English tongue. There are few if any conceptions in economics which cannot be expressed in it without depleting the ordinary vocabulary. At present the language of economics is for the ordinary Englishman like a foreign language of exceptional difficulty, because he is constantly meeting with words which suggest to his mind a whole world of associations quite different from those with which economic theory has clothed them. The refinements of economic analysis, as distinguished from its broader achievements, should be reserved for special studies, in which a technical scientific terminology, specially devised, can be used without danger of misconception. But in a subject like economics obscurity and an awkward terminology are not marks of scientific merit.

Economic studies should be as relevant to existing needs as those of engineering and other applied sciences. The scientific study of practical problems and difficulties is (generally speaking, and with honourable exceptions) far more advanced in almost every civilized country than it is in England, where the limited scale upon which such work is carried on, the indifference of statesmen, officials and business men, and the incapacity of the public to understand the close relation between scientific study and practical success, contrast very unfavourably with the state of affairs in Germany or the United States. The backwardness of economic science has been an index of the danger threatening the industrial and commercial supremacy of the United Kingdom. There are very few questions of public or commercial importance upon which the best and most recent investigations are to be found amongst English works. This would matter very little, perhaps, if Englishmen had a firm belief, established by actual experience, in the soundness of their policy, the present security of their position, and the sufficiency of their methods to strengthen or maintain it. But this is very far from being the case. If we take, for example, the corner-stone of the British commercial system in the 19th century, namely, the policy of “free trade” (q.v.), the public do not now read the economic works which supplied the theoretical basis of that policy, and, indeed, would Economic problems in Great Britain. not be convinced by them. The great men of the period, Cobden and Bright, are merely historical figures. Long before his death, Bright’s references in public speeches to the achievements of the Anti-Corn Law League were received with respectful impatience, and Peel’s famous speech on the repeal of the corn laws would not convince the German Reichstag or a modern House of Commons. The result is that free trade had become by the end of the 19th century in the main an old habit, for which the ordinary English manufacturer could give no very reasonable explanation, whatever may be its influence in commerce and public affairs. The doctrine of free trade only prevailed in so far as it could be restated in terms which had a direct relevance to the existing position of England and existing conditions of international trade. And it was directly challenged by the representatives of Mr Chamberlain’s school of Imperialist thought (see Chamberlain, Joseph). It thus became the work of economic science ruthlessly to analyse the existing situation, explain the issues involved in the commercial policy of different countries, and point out the alternative methods of dealing with present difficulties, with their probable results.

The commercial policy of a state is merely the reflex of its system of public finance (see e.g. English Finance). The absence of conviction in regard to British commercial policy naturally had its counterpart in the attitude of many men to the financial system of the country. The eulogies showered upon it in the past were no longer considered adequate. The great increase in recent years in British military and naval expenditure, made necessary by the exceptional demands of a state of war and the great development of foreign powers, was partly responsible for the new difficulties; partly it was due to the great extension of the functions of the state during the latter part of the 19th century. The former causes may be considered partly permanent, partly temporary; but those of a permanent character are likely to increase in force, and those of a temporary character will leave Commerce and finance. a deposit in the shape of an addition to the normal expenditure of the central government. The extension of government functions appeared much more likely to continue than to be checked. Normal expenditure might therefore be calculated to rise rather than fall. In spite of the vast increase in national wealth, it was found a matter of increasing difficulty to meet a comparatively slight strain without recourse to measures of a highly controversial character; and the search for new sources of revenue (as in 1909) at once raised, in an acute form, questions of national commercial policy and the relations between the United Kingdom and the colonies.

The development of the powers of the central government has been less than that of the functions of local governing authorities. This, again, is a movement much more likely to extend than to be checked. Local governing authorities now discharge economic functions of enormous importance and complexity, involving sums of money larger than sufficed to run important states a generation ago. The scientific study of the economics of local administration is, however, in its infancy, and requires to be taken up in earnest by economists. These questions of commercial policy and local government are closely bound up with the scientific study of the transport system. Although the British Empire contains within itself every known species of railway enterprise, the study of railways and other means of transport, and their relation to the business, the commerce and the social life of the country, is deplorably backward. It is obvious that no inquiry into commercial policy, or into such social questions as the housing of the poor, can be effective unless this deficiency is remedied.

The whole social and political fabric of the British Empire depends upon the efficiency of its industrial system. On this subject many monographs and larger works have been published in recent years, but dealing rather with such questions as trade unionism, co-operation and factory legislation, than the structure and organization of particular industries, or the causes and the results of the formation of the great combinations, peculiarly characteristic of the United States, but not wanting in England, which are amongst the most striking economic phenomena of modern times.

These are some of the questions which must absorb the energies of the rising generation of economists. The claim of economics for recognition as a science and as a subject of study must be based on its relevance to the actual life of the economic world, on its ability to unravel the practical difficulties of each generation, and so contribute to the progress of nations.

Literature.—See also Free Trade; Protection; Tariff; Commercial Treaties; Trusts; Money; Finance; &c. The bibliography of economics as a whole would include a history of all the writers on the subject, and is beyond our scope here; see the numerous articles on economic subjects throughout this work. The article by Dr J.K. Ingram in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is still a valuable historical account. It is only possible to mention here a few of the more recent text-books. The most important general work published in English is Marshall’s Principles of Economics, vol. i. (1st edition, 1890; 4th edition, 1898). J. Shield Nicholson’s Principles of Political Economy (3 vols.) not only gives a survey of economic principles since Mill’s time, but contains much suggestive and original work. The writer of this article is much indebted to the works of Schmoller, particularly his Grundris der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre (1900), and Adolph Wagner, particularly his Grundlegung der politischen Ökonomie. On the history of economic theory, Cannan’s History of the Theories of Production and Distribution (1776-1848) is an admirable criticism, from a purely objective standpoint, of the works of the English classical writers. The most important English works published in recent years on general English economic history are W. Cunningham’s Growth of Industry and Commerce, and W.J. Ashley’s Economic History, while Vinogradoff’s Villenage in England and The Growth of the Manor, as well as Maitland’s Domesday Studies, are of great importance to the student of early economic institutions. D’Avenel’s Histoire économique de la propriété, &c. (1200-1800), is a monumental work on the history of prices in France. Other books dealing with special subjects are likely to take a very high place in economic literature. We may mention particularly Charles Booth’s Life and Labour of the People in London, B.S. Rowntree’s Poverty, Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s History of Trade Unionism and Industrial Democracy, and Dr Arthur Shadwell’s Industrial Efficiency (1906). These books are generally regarded as typical of the best English work of recent years in economic investigation. We may also mention Schloss’s Methods of Industrial Remuneration, a most important contribution to the study of the wages question; C.F. Bastable’s works on International Trade and Public Finance; George Clare on the Money Market and the Foreign Exchanges; and A.T. Hadley’s Economics: An Account of the Relations between Private Property and Public Welfare (1896). Studies of particular questions, both concrete and theoretical, in foreign languages are too numerous to specify, and much of the best modern work is to be found in economic periodicals.

(W. A. S. H.)

ECONOMY, a township and a village of Beaver county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Ohio river, 17 m. N.W. of Pittsburg. Pop. of township (1900) 1062; (1910) 860. The village is served by the Pennsylvania system. It was owned until 1904, when it was sold to a land company, by the Harmony Society (see Communism), commonly called the Economites, Harmonists or Rappists. The founder, George Rapp, after living with his would-be primitive Christian followers at Harmony, Butler county, Pennsylvania, in 1803-1814, and in 1815-1824 in New Harmony (q.v.), Indiana, which he then sold to Robert Owen, settled here in 1824 and rapidly built up a village, in which each family received a house and garden. The culture of silk, flax, grapes (for wine-making) and fruits and cereals in general, and the manufacture of flour and of woollen, flannel and cotton fabrics, were carried on under a rule requiring every adult to labour 12 or 14 hours each day in field or mill. Celibacy had been adopted in 1807 as the rule of the community. New members were received after a half-year’s probation, and members who left received their original investment. Three hundred thus separated from Rapp in 1833, with $105,000 as their share of the communal property, to build the millennial kingdom of New Jerusalem at Phillipsburg (now Monaca), Beaver county, Pennsylvania, under the lead of Bernhard Müller, who had come to Economy in 1831 as a fellow religionist, and was called Count Maximilian de Leon (or Proli); in 1833 Leon went, with his followers, to Louisiana, and established a religious colony 6 m. from Natchitoches. After his death his wife until 1871 was head of a similar community at Germantown in Webster parish. The Harmonists at Economy flourished under the rule of a tradesman, R.L. Baker, or Romelius Langenbacher, after the death of Rapp in 1847, and during the Civil War had about $500,000 buried away. Their numbers were for a time kept up by the addition of fresh converts, but the employés who were not Harmonists soon greatly outnumbered the members of the community, the basis of which was always religious. Baker died in 1868, and his successor, John Henrici, in 1892, when John S. Duss became first trustee. In 1907 there were only two or three members in the society. In 1851 the township of Harmony was set apart from Economy.

See Morris Hillquit, History of Socialism in the United States (New York, 1903); William A. Hinds, American Communities (revised edition, Chicago, 1902); John L. Bole, The Harmony Society (Philadelphia, 1904); Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States (New York, 1875); and among several excellent monographs in German, Karl Knortz, Die christlichkommunistische Kolonie der Rappisten (Leipzig, 1892), and J. Hanno Deiler, Eine vergessene deutsche Colonie: eine Stimme zur Verteidigung des Grafen de Leon (New Orleans, 1900).

ECONOMY, a word ranging in application from the careful thrift of an individual to the systematic arrangement of an organization. It is derived from the Gr. οἰκονομία, the management (νέμειν, to control) of an οἶκος or house, extended in meaning to the administration of a state. Of its original sense, the art or science of managing a household, the expression “domestic economy” survives, but the principal use in this sense is confined to the thrifty management of the financial resources of a household or of an individual. It is thus used as equivalent to “saving,” not only of money, but of time, labour or effort, and, generally, of the least expenditure of means to attain a required end. It is on the principle of “economy” that many phonetic changes occur in the development of languages, and, in aesthetics, the name has been applied to a principle or law that effects are pleasant in proportion to the smallness of the effort made, and of the means taken to produce the result. The phrase “economy of truth” is due to an invidious application of the use, in patristic theology, of the word οἰκονομία for the careful presentation of such doctrine as would be applicable to the hearer (see J.H. Newman, History of the Arians of the 4th Century). “Economy” is also used in theology in such expressions as “Mosaic” or “Christian economy” as a synonym of “dispensation,” for the administration of the world by God at particular times or for particular races. From the meaning of organization or administration of a house or state the word is applied more widely to the ordered arrangement of any organized body, and is equivalent almost to “system”; thus the “economy” of nature or of animal or plant life may be spoken of. The most common use, however, of the word is that of “political economy,” the science dealing with the production, distribution and consumption of wealth (see Economics).

ECSTASY (Gr. ἔκστασις, from ἐξίστημι, put out of its place, alter), a term applied to a morbid mental condition, in which the mind is entirely absorbed in the contemplation of one dominant idea or object, and loses for the time its normal self-control. With this there is commonly associated the prevalence of some strong emotion, which manifests itself in various ways, and with varying degrees of intensity. This state resembles in many points that of catalepsy (q.v.), but differs from it sufficiently to constitute it a separate affection. The patient in ecstasy may lie in a fixed position like the cataleptic, apparently quite unconscious, yet, on awaking, there is a distinct recollection of visions perceived during this period. More frequently there is violent emotional excitement which may find expression in impassioned utterances, and in extravagant bodily movements and gesticulations. Ecstasy usually presents itself as a kind of temporary religious insanity, and has frequently appeared as an epidemic. It is well illustrated in the celebrated examples of the dancing epidemics of Germany and Italy in the middle ages, and the Convulsionnaires of St Medard at the grave of the Abbé Paris in the early part of the 18th century, and in more recent times has been witnessed during periods of religious revivalism. (See also Insanity and Neuropathology.)

ECTOSPORA, a homogeneous and natural division of Protozoan parasites included under the Sporozoa; they comprise the three orders, Gregarines, Coccidia and Haemosporidia. The defining character of the Ectospora is that the spore-mother-cells (sporoblasts) are formed at the periphery of the parent-individual (sporont); we may, however, go further, and say that the formation of all the different reproductive elements is uniformly peripheral or exogenous. Two other very general features are (a) that the individual trophozoite is uninuclear, and (b) that growth and trophic activity are finished before the multiplicative or reproductive phase sets in.

There is now little doubt that the Ectospora possess a flagellate ancestry. The principal facts in favour of this view are as follows: the actual ontogenetic connexion known to exist between certain Haemoflagellates and certain Haemosporidia (see Trypanosomes); the possession by many Coccidia of biflagellar microgametes (male elements), whose general structure greatly resembles that of a Heteromastigine Flagellate; the possession by various parasitic Flagellates (e.g. Herpetomonas) of an attached, resting phase, when the parasites become gregariniform, which strongly suggests the attached phase of many young, growing Gregarines; the typical gregarinoid and euglenoid movements of Gregarines and of the germs or other stages of Coccidia and Haemosporidia, which are quite comparable with the contractile and metabolic movements of Flagellates; and, lastly, the exogenous type of reproduction, which is easily derivable from the multiple division of certain Haemoflagellates, and this, in turn, from the typical binary longitudinal fission of a Flagellate.

ECUADOR (officially La Republica del Ecuador), a republic of South America, bounded N. and N.E. by Colombia, S.E. and S. by Peru, and W. by the Pacific Ocean. Its boundary lines with Colombia and Peru were in 1909 still unsettled, Boundaries. large areas of territory being claimed by all three republics. Under an agreement of the 15th of December 1894, the disputes were to be decided by the Spanish sovereign as arbitrator, but nothing was accomplished. On the 5th of November 1904, Colombia and Ecuador agreed to submit their dispute to the German emperor, and a convention of the 12th of September 1905 between Colombia and Peru established a modus vivendi for the settlement of their conflicting claims, in which Ecuador is likewise interested. The maps of Ecuador, which are very defective, usually describe its territory as extending eastward to the Brazilian frontier, but as Peru is in actual occupation of the region east of Huiririma-chico, on the Napo river, 3½ degrees west of that frontier, those maps cannot be considered correct. The Trans-Andine territory occupied by Ecuador is a wedge-shaped area between the Coca and Napo, the provisional boundary line with Colombia, and a line running nearly west-south-west from Huiririma-chico (about lat. 2° 50′ S., long. 73° 20′ W.) to a point on the Santiago river in about lat. 4° 12′ S., long. 78° W., which forms the provisional boundary with Peru. The eastern part of this territory is also claimed by Peru, which would have the effect, if allowed, of restricting Ecuador to a comparatively small area covered by the Andes and western Cordillera and the narrow plain on the Pacific coast. From the Santiago river, a western affluent of the Marañon, the boundary line runs south-west and west across the Andes to the head waters of the Macara, down that stream to the Chira, or Achira, whose channel marks the frontier down to about 80° 17′ W., where a small stream (the Rio Alamo) enters from the north. The line then runs almost due north to the south shore of the Gulf of Guayaquil, following the western water parting of the lower Tumbez valley. A small district in the valley of the Chira is claimed by Peru. The northern boundary line is described elsewhere (see Colombia). A small section of this line terminating on the Pacific coast is also in dispute, Ecuador claiming the main channel of the Mira as the dividing line, and Colombia claiming a small district south of that channel, the line running due west from the mouth of the most southern outlet of the Mira opening into Panguapi Bay, to a point of intersection with that river.

Physical Geography.—The surface of Ecuador may be divided into three distinct regions: the Cis-Andine lying between the Western Cordillera and the coast; the Inter-Andine, which includes the two great mountain chains crossing the republic with the elevated plateau lying between; and the Trans-Andine, lying east of the Andes in the great Amazon valley. The first part consists of an alluvial, low-lying plain formed in great part by the detritus brought down by the mountain streams. It is irregular in form and is broken by isolated elevations and spurs from the Cordillera. Large areas are still subject to annual inundations in the rainy season, and the lower river courses are bordered with swamps. This is the most fertile and productive part of Ecuador, especially on the higher lands near the Cordillera. The Trans-Andine region is similar to the neighbouring territories of the upper Amazon basin occupied by Colombia, Brazil and Peru—a great forest-covered plain descending gently toward the east, broken on its western margin by short spurs from the Andes enclosing highly fertile valleys, and by low, isolated ranges between the larger river courses, and traversed by large rivers flowing into the Napo and Marañon. This region has been only partially explored, and but little is known of the large areas lying between the navigable rivers.

The Inter-Andine or plateau region lies in and between the two great mountain chains which cross the greater part of the republic between and almost parallel with the 78th and 79th meridians. The eastern chain is known as the Andes of Ecuador, or the Cordillera Oriental, and the western as Mountains. the Cordillera Occidental (Western Cordillera). Starting from the confused grouping on the southern frontier of the two great chains and some transverse ranges, they run nearly north by east to the Colombian frontier where another “knot” or junction occurs. The summits of the western range form a line of noteworthy regularity, but those of the eastern form a broken irregular line of varying distances from the first. The elevated plateau between the two great chains, which is about 300 m. long and 20 to 30 m. wide, is divided into three great shallow basins or plains by the transverse ridges or paramos of Tiupullo and Azuay. These are known as the Quito, Ambato and Cuenca basins. South of the latter is the irregular and deeply broken Loja basin, which can hardly be considered a part of the great Ecuador plateau. The three great basins, which are broken and subdivided by mountainous spurs and ridges, descend gradually toward the south, the Quito plain having an average elevation of 9500 ft. above the sea, Ambato 8500, and Cuenca 7800. They are also characterized by the increasing aridity of the plateau from north to south, the Quito plain being fertile and well covered with vegetation, and the Ambato and Cuenca plains being barren and desolate except in some favoured localities. The volcanic character of the region is likewise responsible for large areas of barren surfaces. Rising from this elevated plateau, along its eastern and western margins, are the Cordilleras with their principal summits culminating far above the line of perpetual snow, which in this region is about 15,750 ft. above the sea. These summits are remarkable, not only for their great height, but also for their apparent symmetrical arrangement in parallel lines, sometimes in pairs facing each other across this cyclopean passage. Nowhere in the world can there be found another such assemblage of snow-clad peaks, several of which are active volcanoes. There are 22 of them grouped around these central plains almost within sight of each other. The western chain has the distinction of having the highest summit, the eastern the greatest number of high summits and the highest average elevation. From the time of Humboldt’s visit to this remarkable region down to the present time there have been many diverse calculations of the height of these peaks, but with a considerable variation. It is estimated that there was a considerable decrease in the elevation of this part of the Andes during the past century, Quito having sunk 26 ft. in 122 years, Pichincha 218 ft. in the same time, and the farm of Antisana, where Humboldt resided for a time, 165 ft. in 64 years. At the same time Cotopaxi and Sangay, the two active volcanoes, have actually increased in elevation since the measurement of La Condamine in 1742. These changes in elevation, if correct, are due to seismic disturbances, a cause that may be partially responsible for the varying computations of the heights of these well-known peaks. Among modern investigators are W. Reiss and A. Stübel (1871-1873), and Edward Whymper (1880), whose measurements of the principal summits were:—

Eastern Cordillera.

Western Cordillera.

 

Ft.

 

Ft.

Cayambe

(W.)

19,186

Cotocachi

(W.)

16,301

Sara-Urcu

”

15,502

Mojanda

(R. & S.)

14,088

Antisana

”

19,335

Pichincha

(W.)

15,918

Sincholagua

(R. & S.)

16,365

Atacatzo

(R. & S.)

14,892

Rumiñagui

”

15,607

El Corazon (Chamalari)

(W.)

15,871

Cotopaxi

(W.)

19,613

Iliniza

(R. & S.)

17,405

Tunguragua

(R. & S.)

16,690

Carahuairazo

(W.)

16,515

Altar (Capac-Urcu)

”

17,730

Chimborazo

”

20,498

Sangay

”

17,464

 

 

 

The Imbabura volcano, celebrated for its destructive eruptions of mud and water, stands midway between the two ranges at the northern end of the plateau, and belongs to the transverse ridge of knot (nudo) which unites them. It is the most northern of the higher peaks of Ecuador, with the exception of Cotocachi, and possibly of Chiles on the Colombian frontier, and reaches the elevation of 15,033 ft. Ibarra on the northern flanks of the volcano has suffered severely from its eruptions. The name is derived from imba, fish, and bura, mother, and is said to have originated from the quantities of a fish called “preñadilla” (Pimelodus cyclopum) discharged from its crater during one of its eruptions—a phenomenon which, after a searching investigation, was discredited by Wagner. Cayambe, or Cayembi, the second highest peak of the Ecuadorean Andes, has the noteworthy distinction of standing very nearly on the equator. Its base covers a large area, and its square top, rising far above the snow-line, is one of the sights of Quito. Antisana is crowned with a double dome, and is described as an extinct volcano, though Humboldt saw smoke issuing from it in 1802. On its western side is the famous hacienda (farm) of Antisana, 13,306 ft. above the sea, where Humboldt resided for several months in 1802. Sara-Urcu stands south-east of Antisana in a densely forested region, drenched with rain and only slightly explored. Sincholagua and Rumiñagui are the next two peaks, going southward, and then the unrivalled cone of Cotopaxi (q.v.)—the highest active volcano in the world—from whose summit smoke curls upward unceasingly.

Llanganati or Cerro Hermoso is chiefly known through the tradition that the treasures of the Incas were buried in a lake on its slopes. It consists of a group of summits, the highest being credited with 17,843 ft. Tunguragua, or Tungurahua, has a cone-shaped summit like that of Cotopaxi, with a slope of 38°. It rises from a plain somewhat lower than the neighbouring central plateau and stands free from the surrounding elevations, except on the south, which give it an exceptionally imposing appearance. Among its characteristic features is a cataract fed by melting snows, which descends 1500 ft. in three leaps, and an enormous basaltic lava-stream, which crosses the face of the mountain in a north-easterly direction. Its most notable eruption was in 1777. It has been sometimes classed among the extinct volcanoes, but smoke has been seen issuing from it at different dates, and a violent eruption occurred on January 12, 1886. The fertile cultivated valley of Baños, with its thermal springs, lies at the base of Tunguragua, which F. Hassaurek describes as “the most beautiful of all the snow peaks in the country.” The next in line is El Altar, which the natives call Capac-Urcu (“king mountain”), whose broken cone and impressive outlines make it one of the most attractive mountains of Ecuador. Its summit comprises a group of eight snow-clad peaks, and its crater is surrounded by a steep and jagged wall of rocks. There is a tradition that this mountain was once higher than Chimborazo, but a series of eruptions caused the cone to fall in and reduced its summit to its present altitude and broken appearance. Altar has shown no signs of activity since the discovery of America. Sangay, or Sangai, the next and last large volcano to the south, is in a state of frequent eruption, however, and is known as one of the most restless volcanoes of the world. Since the Spanish conquest it has been in a state of uninterrupted activity, but no damage has been done, because there are no civilized settlements in its immediate vicinity. Though of great interest to scientific investigators because of this unceasing activity, and of its peculiar position in the Andean system, and because of the difficult and dangerous country by which it is surrounded, Sangay has been but rarely visited by European travellers. Its eruptions are not on a grand scale, but small outbursts of lava and explosions of steam occur at frequent intervals, and at longer intervals more violent explosions in which the molten rock is thrown 2000 ft. above its summit, and ashes are carried away as far as the streets of Guayaquil.

Turning to the Cordillera Occidental and taking the principal peaks in order from south to north, the first to claim attention is Chimborazo (from Chimpu-raza, “mountain of snow”), the highest summit of Ecuador, and once believed to be the culminating point of the Andes. Humboldt, who unsuccessfully attempted its ascent in 1802, gives its elevation as 21,425 ft., Reiss and Stubel as 20,703, and Whymper as 20,498. It stands 76 m. north-east of Guayaquil, and, according to Spruce, rises majestically from the valley of the Guayas, on the west, without a “positive break from the summit down to the plain.” This, however, is erroneous, for Whymper located a detached range running parallel with the Cordillera on the west, for a distance of 65 m. with the Chimbo valley between them. The magnificence of its mass is imposing from almost any point of view, but it can be most fully appreciated from its western or Pacific side, where its base is covered with forest up to the snow-line, above which its pure white cone rises another 5000 ft. An unobstructed view of the great mountain is rarely obtained, however, because of the mists and clouds which cover its cone. Its summits were reached for the first time in 1880 by Edward Whymper, all previous attempts having failed. It is considered to be an extinct volcano because it makes the plumb-line deviate only 7″ to 8″, from which it is deduced that the mountain is hollow. Moreover, the calcined matter resembling white sand which covers its sides below the snow-line, extensive beds of lava, and the issue of streams of hot water from its northern side, seem to confirm the deduction that Chimborazo is an extinct volcano. Immediately north of Chimborazo, and separated from it by only a narrow valley, are the lower triple summits of Carahuairazo, or Carguairazo (which the natives call Chimborazo-embra, “Chimborazo’s wife”), whose hollow cone collapsed in 1698 during a great earthquake, and left the jagged rim which adds so much to its present picturesque appearance. Mr Whymper’s measurement is for the middle peak. Quirotoa, still farther north, is supposed to have suffered a similar catastrophe. Its hollow summit, 13,510 ft. above sea-level, now contains a large lake. Iliniza, which stands west by north of Cotopaxi, has two pyramidal peaks, and is one of the most interesting mountains of the Ecuadorean group. It stands at the western end of the Tiupullo ridge, and overlooks the Quito basin to the north-east. The French academician Bouger, who was chief of the scientific commission sent to Ecuador in 1736 to measure a degree of the meridian on the equator, made a trigonometrical measurement of Iliniza, and Wagner ascended to within 800 ft. of its summit in 1859. The geological structure of the mountain furnishes no evidence of volcanic activity. Chamalari, which the Spaniards called El Corazon from its heart-shaped appearance, is similarly destitute of a crater. It overlooks the Quito basin and has been ascended many times. Among the earlier explorers to reach its summit were Bouger and La Condamine, Humboldt and Bonpland, and José Cáldas, the Granadian naturalist. Atacatzo is an extinct volcano, with nothing noteworthy in its appearance and history. Pichincha, its famous neighbour, is apparently of later origin, according to Wagner, and of slightly lower elevation. Perhaps no Ecuadorean volcano is better known than Pichincha, the “boiling mountain,” because of its destructive eruptions and its proximity to the city of Quito. Its summit comprises three groups of rocky peaks, of which the most westerly, Rucu-Pichincha (Old Pichincha), contains the crater, a funnel-shaped basin 2460 ft. deep and about 1500 ft. wide at the bottom, whose walls in places rise perpendicularly and in others at an angle of 20°. The exterior of the cone has an angle of 30°. Bouger and La Condamine were the first to reach its brink in 1742, after which Humboldt made the ascent in 1802, Boussingault and Hall in 1831, Garcia Moreno and Sebastian Wisse in 1844 and 1845 (descending into the crater for the first time), Garcia Moreno and Jameson in 1857, Farrand and Hassaurek in 1862, Orton in 1867, and Whymper in 1880. Farrand spent more than a week in the crater trying to get some good photographic views, and Orton has given a graphic description of his experiences in the same place. He found that the real cone of eruption was an irregular heap 250 ft. in height and 800 ft. in diameter, containing about 70 vents. The temperature of the vapour within the fumarole was 184°, and water boiled at 189°. There have been five eruptions of Pichincha since the Spanish conquest—in 1539, 1566, 1575, 1587 and 1660. The second covered Quito 3 ft. deep with ashes and stones, but the last three were considered as the most destructive to that city. The last happily broke down the western side of the crater, which, it is believed, will ensure the city against harm in any subsequent eruption. Since the earthquake of August 1867 Pichincha has sent forth dense masses of black smoke and great quantities of fine sand. Cotocachi is a double-peaked mountain, rising from an extremely rough country. It was ascended by Whymper in 1880. All the higher summits of Ecuador have true glaciers, the largest being found on Antisana, Cayambe and Chimborazo. Whymper located and named no less than eleven on Chimborazo, and counted twelve on Cayambe.

There are two distinct hydrographic systems in Ecuador—the streams that flow south-eastward to the Marañon, or Amazon, and those which flow westward to the Pacific. The southern part of the great central plateau is arid and has a very Rivers. light rainfall; it has no streams, therefore, except from melting snows, and the higher elevations which receive the impact of the easterly winds. Farther north the rainfall becomes heavier, the plateau is covered with vegetation, and a considerable number of small rivers flow westward through the Cordillera to the Pacific. The Eastern Cordillera, or Andes, forms the water-parting between the two systems. The largest of the eastward-flowing rivers is the Napo, which rises in the eastern defiles of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua—the principal source being the Rio del Valle, which traverses the Valle Vicioso. It at first flows south by east, and at the village of Napo is 1450 ft. above sea-level, at the mouth of the Coca 858 ft., at the mouth of the Aguarico 586 ft., 500 at the mouth of the Curaray, and 385 at its junction with the Marañon. Orton estimates its current at Napo in the month of November as 6 m. an hour; in the next 80 m. the river falls 350 ft. and produces a fine series of rapids; and from Santa Rosa downwards the rate is not less than 4 m. an hour. Its breadth at Napo is only 120 ft., but at Coca it has widened to 1500 ft., and at its mouth to nearly 1 m. Like most of the large Amazon tributaries, its discharge into the Marañon is through several distinct channels. The Napo is navigable for steam-boats for some distance above the mouth of the Coca, and thence for canoes as far as the Cando cataract, 3332 ft. above the sea. Its total length is 920 m. The principal tributaries of the Napo are the Coca and Aguarico from the north, and the Curaray from the south. The Coca rises on the eastern slopes of the Andes near Cayambe and the Guamani range, and flows eastward near the equator to San Rafael (about 76° 30′ W. long.), where it turns sharply southward to a junction with the Napo in about lat. 1° S., long. 76° W. The Coca forms the provisional boundary line between Ecuador and Colombia from its source to the Napo. The Aguarico also rises on the eastern slopes of the Andes north of Cayambe and flows south-eastward to a junction with the Napo in about long. 75° W., its length being roughly estimated at 420 m. Little is known of its course, or of the country through which it flows, which is provisionally occupied by Colombia. The Curaray has its sources in the defiles of the Cerros de Llanganati, and flows south-eastward to the Napo, its length being estimated at 490 m. Its lower course is sluggish, where its waters are made unpalatable by a reddish slime. The Napo and its tributaries are celebrated in the early history of South America as the route by which Gonzalo Pizarro and Orellana first reached the Amazon, and it was afterwards the principal route by which the early expeditions across the continent at this point connected the Andean Plateau with the Amazon. The other rivers which flow through the Oriente territory of Ecuador into the Marañon are the Tigre, Pastaza, Morona and Santiago. The Tigre, of which little was known until a recent date, is formed by the confluence of the Cunambo and Huiviyacu, whose sources are on the eastern slopes of the Andes near those of the Curaray. Its length below this confluence is 416 m., into which are received 109 tributaries, the largest of which are the Pucacuro and Corrientes. The Tigre is navigable at all stages up to the Cunambo confluence, and promises to afford one of the most valuable river routes in Ecuador. It enters the Marañon very near the 74th meridian. The Pastaza, or Pastassa, unlike the rivers already described, has its source on the central plateau west of the principal chain of the Andes, within the shadow of Cotopaxi, and breaks through the Cordillera to the north of Tunguragua. After flowing southward along the base of the high Andes for a short distance and receiving a number of torrents from the snowclad heights, it turns south-eastward across the plain and enters the Marañon about 70 m. above the mouth of the Huallaga. The stream is known as the Patate down to its junction with the Chambo, near Baños, and is not called Pastaza until the Agoyan falls are passed. It was navigated by Don Pedro Maldonado as early as 1741, and is navigable for steamboats of 2 to 4 ft. draft up to the mouth of the Huasaga (about 124 m.) in times of high water, and for canoes nearly 200 m. farther. The Pastaza, however, is subject to irresistible floods caused by the sudden rising of the mountain torrents on its upper course, especially the Toro, which sweep down with such fury that navigation on the river is practically impossible. The shallowness of the lower stream, where the current is sluggish, is probably due to the great quantities of silt brought down by these floods. Many of the rivers of eastern Ecuador are subject to similar floods from the Andean slopes, which have cut away broad, deep channels, through the adjacent plains, leaving long, narrow ridges between their courses which the natives call cuchillas. The Morona is formed by the confluence of the Manhuasisa and Cangaima about 310 m. above its mouth, and is freely navigable for small steamboats to that point. The two confluents just mentioned have their sources in the Andes, and flow for some distance across the plain before uniting to form the Morona. Both are navigable for considerable distances. The Morona follows a very tortuous course before entering the Marañon, at long. 70° W., and receives a large number of affluents, one of which serves as the outlet for Lake Rimachuma, in Peruvian territory. Very little is definitely known of the affluents of the Morona, Pastaza and Tigre, as the territory through which they run has been but slightly explored. The Santiago, which enters the Marañon near the Pongo de Manseriche, is formed by the confluence of the Paute, which rises in the province of Azuay, and the Zamora, which has its source among the mountains of Loja. According to Alexander Garland (Peru in 1906), the rivers of eastern Ecuador are navigable at low water for steamers of 2 to 4 ft. draft for an aggregate distance of 1503 m., as follows:—

 

Miles.

Napo, to the mouth of the Aguarico

559

Curaray, up to Canonaco

286

Tigre, up to Cunambo-Huiviyacu confluence

416

Pastaza

 31

Morona, up to the Rarayacu

211

These same rivers are navigable at high water for steamers of 19½ ft. draft for an aggregate distance of 1330 m., including 68 m. of the Aguarico, and for steamers of 2 to 4 ft. draft for an additional 733 m. The last aggregate includes an extension of 93 m. on the Pastaza, 99 on the Morona, 186 on the Napo, and the balance on the Manhuasisa, Cangaima, Pucacuro, Corrientes, Cunambo and Huiviyacu.

On the western versant of the Andes of Ecuador there are three river systems of considerable size—the Mira, the Esmeraldas and the Guayas. The sources of the first—the Rioblanco, Pisco and Puntal—are to be found on the northern slopes of the transverse ridge which culminates in the Imbabura volcano. Its course is north and north-west to the Colombian frontier, thence westward and north-west to the Pacific, breaking through the Western Cordillera on its way. It forms the boundary line for some distance between Ecuador and Colombia, but near its mouth where the river turns northward Colombia has taken possession of the left bank and all the territory covered by its large delta. Its principal tributaries on the left are the San Pedro, Paramba, Cachiyacu, Chachavi and Canumbi, and on the right the San Juan, Caiquer and Nulpe. The delta channels of the Mira are navigable, being tributary to the Colombian port of Tumaco. The Esmeraldas drains all that part of the central plateau lying between the transverse ridge of Tiupullo on the south, and the Imbabura ridge on the north, together with the western slopes of the Cordillera between Iliniza and Cotocachi, and a considerable part of the lower plain. It is formed by the confluence of the Quininde and Toachi with the Guaillabamba between 40 and 50 m. above its mouth, and discharges into the Pacific in lat. 1° N., long. 79° 40′ W., through a narrow and precipitous gorge. The volume and current of the river is sufficient to freshen the sea 2 m. from the coast. The Guaillabamba is the larger and more important tributary, and should be considered the main stream. It rises in the Chillo valley in the vicinity of Cayambe, and flows across the northern end of the central plateau, breaking through the Western Cordillera between Cotocachi and Pichincha. One of its plateau tributaries, Rio Pedregal, rises on the slopes of Cotopaxi and is celebrated for its three beautiful cascades, the highest of which is about 220 ft. The Toachi and Quininde have their sources on the western slopes of the Cordillera. The Guayas or Guayaquil river is in part an estuary extending northward from the Gulf of Guayaquil, bordered by mangrove swamps and mud banks formed by the silt brought down from the neighbouring mountains. All the bordering country on both sides is of the same description, and for a long distance inland extensive areas of swampy country are submerged during the rainy season. Above the mouth of the Daule the river is known as the Bodegas, which in turn is formed by the confluence of the Babahoyo and the Vinces. The Guayas also receives a large tributary from the east called the Yaguachi. All these streams are navigable on their lower courses, regular steamboat communication being maintained on the Guayas and Bodegas to a river port of the latter name, 80 m. above Guayaquil, and for 40 m. on the Daule. The navigable channels of all the rivers are computed at 200 m. The drainage basin of the Guayas, according to Theodor Wolf, covers an area of 14,000 sq. m., and includes the greater part of the lower plain and the western slopes of the Cordillera Occidental as far north as Iliniza. The Babahoyo, which is the main stream, has its sources on the slopes of Chimborazo, the Daule on the Sandomo ridge in the latitude of Pichincha, the Yaguachi on the south-eastern slopes of Chimborazo, whence it flows southward for a considerable distance before breaking through the Cordillera to the western plain. The Guayas is one of the most interesting and varied of the South American river systems, and is of great economic importance to Ecuador. In addition to these three river systems, there are a large number of short streams on the coast flowing into the Pacific and Gulf of Guayaquil, only two of which have any special importance in the present undeveloped state of the country. These are the Santiago, which drains several fertile valleys in northern Esmeraldas and western Carchi, and whose outlet is connected with some navigable tide-water channels, including the Pailon basin and the Caráquez, or Caracas, on which is located the village of Bahia de Caráquez (lat. 0° 34′ S.), the nearest port to the city of Quito.

There are a considerable number of small lakes in Ecuador, but no large ones. These are of two classes—those of the bowl-like valleys and extinct craters of the mountainous region, and the reservoir lakes of the lowland plains caused by Lakes. the annual overflow of the rivers. It is impossible to say how many of the latter there may be, for much of the territory where they are found is unexplored. They are usually shallow and malarial. Among the upland lakes, there are some of special interest because of their position and historical association. The Yaguar-cocha (“lake of blood”), in the province of Imbabura, near Ibarra, which is only 1½ m. in circumference, is celebrated for the tradition that Huayna-Capac, one of the great conquerors of the Inca dynasty, defeated an army of rebellious Carranquis on its shores, and threw so many of their bleeding corpses into it as to turn its waters to the colour of blood. On the south-east skirt of Cotocachi, 10,200 ft. above the sea, is the beautiful little Cuy-cocha, which originated, it is believed, through the falling in of the mountain’s sides. There are two others of apparently the same origin on the north-west slopes of the Mojanda volcano, but they are less attractive because of their gloomy surroundings. In the deep valley between the mountains of Imbabura and Mojanda is the lake of San Pablo, 8848 ft. above the sea. It is one of the largest of its class, being about 5 m. in circumference, and is situated in an exceptionally fertile region. It drains through the Peguchi into the Rio Blanco, a tributary of the Mira. Other well-known lakes of the plateau region are Quirotoa, about 4600 ft. in diameter; Colta, east of Riobamba, and Colay, south of the same place. Among the many thermal springs throughout the Andean districts, the best known are at Belermos and San Pedro del Tingo, north-east of Quito; at Cachillacta, in the district of Nanegal; at Timbugpoyo, near Latacunga; at Baños (5906 ft. elevation), near the foot of Tunguragua; and on the slopes of Rumiñagui and Chimborazo.

The coast of Ecuador extends from about lat. 1° 20′ N. to the vicinity of the Boca Jambeli on the southern shore of the Gulf of Guayaquil, in lat. 3° 14′ S., and has an outward curve. Its more prominent headlands are Punta Galera, Cabo Coast. Pasado, Cabo de San Lorenzo and La Puntilla, or Santa Élena Point. The bays on this coast are commonly broad indentations, and the rivers discharging into them are generally obstructed by bars. The small ports along the coast, therefore, do not afford much protection to shipping. The most northern of these bays is the Ancon de Sardinas, lying south of the Mira delta. The head of the bay is fringed with islands and reefs, behind which is the mouth of the Santiago river, Poza Harbour, San Lorenzo Bay, Pailon basin and a network of navigable channels, all of which are difficult of access. The small ports of La Tola and Pailon are located on these waters. The port of Esmeraldas, near the mouth of the Esmeraldas river, is located near the southern entrance to this bay. As the mouth of the river is obstructed by a bar and its current is swift, the anchorage is outside in an open roadstead, only slightly protected on the south. Farther south is the broad Bay of Manta, with a small port of the same name at its southern extremity. The most frequented port on this part of the coast is that of Bahia de Caráquez, at the mouth of the Caráquez, or Caracas river, which is also obstructed by a bar. There is a fertile, productive country back of this port, and it is the objective point of a road from Quito. Immediately north of the Gulf of Guayaquil is the Bay of Santa Élena, with a small port of the same name, which has a good, well-sheltered anchorage and is the landing-place of the West Coast cable. The Gulf of Guayaquil, which lies between the Ecuadorean and Peruvian coasts, is the largest gulf on the Pacific coast of South America between Panama and Chiloe. Its mouth is 140 m. wide between La Puntilla on the north and Cabo Blanco on the south, and it penetrates the land eastward, with a slight curve northward at its head, for a distance of about 100 m., terminating in the Guayas estuary or river, on which is located the port of Guayaquil. The upper end of the bay and its northern shores are fringed with swamps through which numerous estuaries penetrate for some distance inland. Immediately west of the Guayas river the Estero Salado, which comprises a great many shallow tide-water channels, or bayous, penetrates as far inland as Guayaquil, but is used only by canoes. The upper end of the gulf is filling up with the silt brought down from the Cordillera. It is divided midway by the large island of Puna, at the eastern end of which is the anchorage for steamers too large to ascend the Guayas. The steamship channel passes between this island and the Peruvian coast, and is known as the Jambeli channel. The passage north of Puna Island is known as the Morro channel, but its entrance is obstructed by shoals and it is considered dangerous for shipping. A small port in the Jambeli channel, on the south-east shore of the gulf, is that of Puerto Bolivar, or Puerto Huaila, the shipping port for the town of Machala and the Zaruma mining region.

There are few islands off the coast of Ecuador, and only one of any considerable size—that of Puna in the Gulf of Guayaquil, which is 29 m. long from north-east to south-west and 8 to 14 m. wide. It lies in the north-east part of the gulf, and is Islands. separated from the Ecuadorean mainland by the Morro channel, and from the southern mainland by the wider and deeper Jambeli channel. There is a low, mountainous ridge, called the Zampo Palo, running through it, and its eastern shores have some moderately high bluffs; otherwise the island is low and swampy, and its shores, except the eastern end, are fringed with mud banks. The island is densely wooded (in marked contrast with the opposite Peruvian shore), and is considered unhealthy throughout the greater part. It has a population of 200, chiefly centred in the village of Puna, at its north-east extremity, which is a shipping port and health resort for the city of Guayaquil. Puna island is celebrated for its connexion with Pizarro’s invasion of Peru in 1531. It is said that it had a considerable population at that time, and that the natives resisted the invaders so vigorously that it cost six months to reduce them. Midway in the outer part of the Gulf of Guayaquil is Amortajada or Santa Clara island, whose resemblance to a shrouded corpse suggested the name which it bears. It lies 12 m. south-west of Puna island and 80 m. from Guayaquil. It rises to a considerable elevation, and carries a light 256 ft. above sea-level. There are some low, swampy islands, or mud flats, covered with mangrove thickets, in the lower Guayas river, but they are uninhabited and of no importance. North of the Gulf of Guayaquil there are only two small islands on the coast of more than local interest. The first of these is Salango, in lat. 1° 25′ S., which is 2 m. in circumference and rises to a height of 524 ft. It is richly wooded, and has a well-sheltered anchorage much frequented by whalers in search of water and fresh provisions. The next is La Plata, in lat. 1° 16′ S., which rises to a height of 790 ft., and has a deep anchorage on its eastern side where Drake is said to have anchored in 1579 to divide the spoils of the Spanish treasure ship “Cacafuego.” The Galapagos Islands (q.v.) belong to the republic of Ecuador, and form a part of the province of Guayas.

Geology.1—The great longitudinal depression which lies between the eastern and the western branches of the Andes is also the boundary between the ancient rocks of the east and the Mesozoic beds which form the greater part of the west of the country. The Eastern Cordillera is composed of gneiss, mica and chlorite schist and other crystalline rocks of ancient date; the Western Cordillera, on the other hand, is formed of porphyritic eruptive rocks of Mesozoic age, together with sedimentary deposits containing Cretaceous fossils. Most of the country between the Andes and the sea is covered by Tertiary and Quaternary beds; but the range of hills which runs north-west from Guayaquil is formed of Cretaceous and porphyritic rocks similar to those of the Andes. In the intra-andine depression, between the East and West Cordilleras, recent deposits with plant remains occur near Loja, and to the north-east of Cuenca is a sandstone containing mercury ores, somewhat similar to that of Peru. Farther north nearly the whole of the depression is filled with lavas, tuffs and agglomerates, derived from the Tertiary and recent volcanoes which form the most striking feature of the Andes of Ecuador. These volcanoes are most numerous in the northern half of the country, and they stand indifferently upon the folded Mesozoic beds of the Western Cordillera (e.g. Chimborazo, Iliniza, Pichincha), the ancient rocks of the Eastern Cordillera (Altar, Tunguragua, Cotopaxi, Antisana), or the floor of the great depression between. The lavas and ashes are for the most part andesitic.

Climate.—Climatic conditions in Ecuador are very largely contingent on altitude, and the transition from one climate to another is a matter of only a few hours’ journey. Although the equator crosses the northern part of the republic, only 15 m. north of the city Of Quito, a very considerable part of its area has the temperature of the temperate zone, and snow-crowned summits are to be seen every day in the year from its great central plateau. In addition to the climatic changes due to altitude, there are others caused by local arid conditions, by volcanic influences and by the influence of mountain ranges on the temperature and rainfall of certain districts. These influences are not general; on the contrary, they often affect very limited areas. For instance, Guayaquil has a hot humid climate and mangrove swamps line the shores of Guayas down to the gulf; at Santa Élena, about 60 m. due west, arid conditions prevail and vegetation is scanty and dwarfed; at Salango island, 50 m. north of Santa Élena, there is an abundance of moisture and vegetation is luxuriant; 33 m. farther north, at Manta, the country is a desert; and at Atacames bay, 135 m. north of Manta, the rainfall and vegetation are again favourable. On the plateau similar conditions prevail. There is no great display of arboreal vegetation anywhere except in the valleys and lower passes where the rainfall is abundant, but in general terms it may be said that the rainfall and vegetation which characterize the Quito basin soon disappear as one proceeds southward, and are substituted by arid conditions. Even here there are local modifications, as at Ambato, where a shallow depression, surrounded by barren, dust-covered ridges exposed to cold winds, is celebrated for its warm, equable climate and its fruit. It is to be noted that the Gulf of Guayaquil separates the humid, forest-covered coastal plain of Ecuador from the arid, barren coast of Peru, the two regions being widely dissimilar. The mean annual temperature, on this plain, according to an official publication, is 82.4° F., and the range is from 66° to 95°. The heat is modified at many points on the coast, however, by the cold Humboldt current which sweeps up the west coast of South America from the Antarctic seas. The year is divided into a wet and dry season—the former running from December to June, and the latter from July to December. The rainy season, or invierno, is broken by a short period of dry weather, called the veranillo (little summer), shortly after the December solstice; otherwise it rains every day, the streams overflow, land traffic is suspended, and the air is drenched with moisture and becomes oppressive and pestiferous. The dry season, which is called the verano, or summer, is also broken by a short rainy spell called the inviernillo (little winter) or “cordonazo de San Francisco,” which follows the September equinox. Apart from these the two seasons are sometimes broken by cloudless skies in winter, and a drizzling mist, called the garua, in summer. In the inter-andine region the variations in temperature are frequent and the averages comparatively low. An official estimate gives the mean annual temperature as 64° to 68° between 6000 and 11,000 ft. In Quito the mean annual temperature is 58.8°, the diurnal variation 10°, the annual maximum 70°, and the annual minimum 45°. Other returns give the mean annual temperature at 55°. It is said that pulmonary tuberculosis is unknown in these altitudes, though it is common in the coast districts. Catarrhal complaints are common, however, and leprosy is widely prevalent, it being necessary to maintain three large hospitals for lepers. In the higher altitudes there are wide variations in the snow-fall and intensity of the cold even on the same mountain. The line of permanent snow is much higher on the plateau side in both ranges, the precipitation being greater on the outer sides—those facing the forested lowlands—and the terrestrial radiation being greater from the barren surfaces of the plateau. In some instances the difference in the elevation of the snow-line has been found to be fully 1000 ft. Moreover, no two summits seem to retain the snow permanently at the same altitude. For instance, in 1880 Whymper found permanent snow on Cotocachi at 14,500 ft., while near by Imbabura was bare to its summit (15,033 ft.); Antisana was permanently covered at 16,000 ft., and near by Sara-Urcu, which is drenched with rains and mists from the Amazon valley all the year round, at 14,000 ft.; Sincholagua had large beds of permanent snow at 15,300 ft., Cotopaxi was permanently covered at 15,500 ft. on its western side, Corazon had daily snowstorms down to 14,500 ft., but no permanent beds of snow on its east side (elevation 15,871 ft.); and Chimborazo had deep snow at 15,600 ft. on its north-east and south sides in June—July. The eastern range was found to receive the heaviest snowfall. The elevation at which human residence is possible seems to be unusually high in Ecuador. Many of the towns and villages of central Ecuador lie at altitudes ranging from 8606 ft. (Ambato) to 9839 ft. (Machachi). The capital city of Quito is 9343 ft. above the sea, and is celebrated for its agreeable temperature, and also for its healthiness in spite of prevailing unsanitary conditions. Above these towns are a number of farms and herdsmen’s habitations, where men live the whole or a part of the year with less discomfort from low temperature than is experienced in northern Europe and northern United States. According to Whymper, the tambo of Chuquipoquio, at the foot of Chimborazo, is 11,704 ft., and the hacienda of Pedregal, near Iliniza, 11,629 ft., both being permanently occupied. The hacienda of Antisana, 13,306 ft., and the herdsmen’s hut of Cunayaco on Chimborazo, 13,396 ft., are occupied only for a part of the year. The highest elevations are generally covered with ice and snow, and glaciers, according to Whymper, are to be found upon no less than nine of the culminating peaks, and possibly upon two or three more. These serve to modify the temperatures of the plateau, which is swept by cold winds at all seasons of the year. The prevailing wind is that of the north-east and south-east trade winds, broken and modified on the plateau and western lowlands by mountain barriers. Westerly and north-west winds are sometimes experienced, but are not permanent.

Flora.—The flora of the Quito basin has been well studied by various European botanists, more especially by Dr William Jameson (1796-1873) of the university of Quito, who began the preparation of a synopsis of the Ecuadorean flora in 1864-1865 (Synopsis plantarum Quitensium, 2 vols., Quito, 1865). The flora of the forested lowlands on both sides of the Andes has not been studied and described so fully. From the Pacific coast upward to a height of about 3000 to 4000 ft. the vegetation is distinctively tropical, including among its economic products cacao, cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, maize, yucca (also known as cassava and mandioca), peanuts, bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, arracacha (Conium moschatum, H.B.K., or Arracacha esculenta), indigo, rubber (Castilloa), ivory-nuts, cinchona and bread-fruit. Most of these become rare at 3000 ft., but a few, like sugar-cane, are cultivated as high as 8000 ft. The alluvial valley of the Guayas, above Guayaquil, is celebrated for the richness of its vegetation, which, in fruit alone, includes cacao, coffee, coco-nuts, pine-apples, oranges, lemons, guayavas (Psidium pomiferum), guavas (Inga spectabilis), shaddocks (or grape-fruit), pomegranates, apricots, chirimoyas (Anona Chirimolia), granadillas (Passiflora quadrangularis), paltas (Persea gratissima, otherwise known as “alligator pears”), tunas (Cactus), mangoes (Mangifera Indica), pacays (Prosopis dulcis), aji (Chile pepper), and many others of less importance. Besides rubber, the forests produce a great variety of cabinet and construction woods, ivory-nuts (from the “tagua” palm, Phytelephas macrocarpa), “toquilla” fibre (Carludovica palmata) for the manufacture of so-called Panama hats, cabbage palms, several species of cinchona, vanilla and dyewoods. Among the large trees which are valued for their timber are redwood (Humiria balsamifera), Brazil-wood, algarrobo, palo de cruz (Jacquinea ruscifolia), guaiacum or holy wood, rosewood, cedar and walnut. From 6000 to 10,000 ft. above the sea, the indigenous species include the potato, maize, oca (Oxalis tuberosa), and quinua (Chenopodium quinoa), and the exotic species, wheat, barley, oats, alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and most of the fruits and vegetables of the northern temperate zone. Wheat does not form a head below 4500 ft., nor ripen above 10,500. The larger forest trees are rarely seen above 10,000 ft., and even there only on the outer slopes of the Cordilleras. The Escallonia myrtalloides, however, is found at an elevation of 13,000 ft., and the shrubby Befarias 400 or 500 ft. higher. A characteristic growth of the open plateau and upland valleys is the cabulla, cabaya or maguey (Agave americana), whose fibre is much used by the natives in the manufacture of cordage, sandals (alpargatas) and other useful articles. In the treeless region lying between 11,600 and 13,800, or in other places between 12,000 and 14,000 ft., the similarity of the vegetation to that of the corresponding European region, according to Wagner, is especially striking. On the paramos of Chimborazo, Pichincha, Iliniza, &c., the relation of characteristic genera to those identical with genera in the Alpine flora of Europe is as 5 to 4; and the botanist might almost suppose himself in the Upper Engadine. Of the flora of the highest Andes, Whymper found 42 species, of various orders, above 16,000 ft., almost all of which were from Antisana and Chimborazo; 12 genera of mosses were found above 15,000 ft., and 59 species of flowering plants above 14,000 ft., of which 35 species came from above 15,000 and 20 species from above 16,000 ft. The highest specimen obtained was a lichen (Lecanora subfusca, L.) on the south side of Chimborazo, 18,400 ft. above sea-level. Mosses (Grimmia) were found on Chimborazo at 16,660 ft., ferns (Polypodium pycnolepis, Kze.) at 14,900, and specimens of Gentiana rupicola, H. B. K., Achyrophorus quitensis, Sz. Bip., Culcitium nivale, H. B. K., at 16,300; Phyllactis inconspicua, Wedd., at 16,600, Astragalus geminiflorus, H. B. K., at 14-15,000, Geranium diffusum, H. B. K., at 16,000, Malvastrum phyllanthos, Asa Gray, at 16,500, Draba obovata, Benth., at 16,660, and Ranunculus praemorsus, Kth., at 16,500—all on Chimborazo. Fuchsia loxensis, H. B. K., was found on the slope of Sara-Urcu at 12,779 ft., and currant bushes (Ribes glandulosum, R. & P.), on Chimborazo, at 14,000. On the eastern slopes of the Andes, where the rainfall is continuous throughout the year and the atmosphere is surcharged with moisture, the forest growth is phenomenal. It is similar to that of the Colombian and Peruvian montanas, modified, if at all, by the excessive humidity which prevails in this region.

Fauna.—The fauna of Ecuador is comparatively poor in mammalia, but the birds and still more the insects are very numerous. The Quadrumana are represented by a large number of species, the eastern forests being very much like the other parts of the great Amazonian basin in this respect. The Carnivora include the puma (Felis concolor), jaguar (F. onca), ocelot (F. grisea), bear (Ursus ornatus), fox, weasel and otter. A small deer and, in southern Ecuador, the llama (Auchenia) with its allied species, the alpaca, guanaco and vicuña, represent the ruminants. The rodents are numerous and include most, if not all, of the Amazonian species—the capybara (Hydrochoerus capybara), cavia (C. aperea), paca (Coelogenys paca) and cutia (Dasyprocta aguti), all amphibious and having an extensive range. Tapirs are to be found in the eastern forests, the peccary in more open woodlands, and the opossum in nearly every part of the country. Cattle, horses, asses, sheep and swine were introduced by the Spaniards, and thrive well in some of the provinces. Excellent horses are reared in the uplands, as well as mules and cattle, the pasturage on the mountain slopes being good, and alfalfa being grown in abundance in many districts. The Reptilia include countless numbers of alligators in the Guayas and its tributaries and in the tide-water channels of many of the smaller rivers; many species of lizards, of which Mr Whymper found three in the Quito basin; snakes of every description from the huge anaconda of the Amazon region down to the beautifully marked coral snake; and a great variety of frogs and toads. Bats also are very numerous, especially in the eastern forest region, where the vampire bat is a serious obstacle to permanent settlement. The avifauna of Ecuador is distinguished for the great variety of its genera and species, among which are many peculiar to the Amazon valley, and others to the colder uplands. Among the Amazon species may be mentioned the parrot, macaw (Macrocercus), toucan (Ramphastos), curassow (Crax), penelope, trogon, and horned screamer (Palamedea cornuta). There are also herons, ibises, storks and cranes, including the great black-headed white crane, Mycteria americana, which ranges from northern Argentina to Colombia. One species of ibis, the Theristicus caudatus, is to be found, it is said, only on the slopes of Antisana. Species of the pheasant and partridge are not uncommon, and the “guácharo” (Steatornis caripensis), once believed to inhabit Venezuela only, is found in Ecuador also. The Raptores are well represented by a large number of genera and species, which include the condor, eagle, vulture, falcon, hawk and owl. The condor (Sarcorhamphus gryphus) is commonly found between the elevations of 6000 and 16,000 ft., rarely, if ever, descending to the lowland plains or rising above the lower peaks. It preys upon the smaller animals and inflicts much loss upon stock farmers through the destruction of calves, lambs, &c., but it very rarely ventures to attack man or any of the larger animals. The eagle common to Ecuador is the Morphnus taeniatus, and possibly the M. guaianensis on the eastern slopes of the Andes. The harrier-eagle (Herpetotheres cachinnans) is also to be found throughout this part of the continent. An eagle with buzzard-like habits, the Leucopternis plumbea, is likewise common in Ecuador. Among the vultures the turkey-buzzard group (Rhinogryphus or Cathartes), including the R. aurus, burrovianus and perniger, is common everywhere. The carrion crow, or black vulture (Catharista atrata), is also common to every part of the country, and is the general scavenger. The carrion hawks are represented by the Polyborus tharus, popularly called the “caracara,” and the Phalcobaenus carunculatus; the falcons by the Aesalon columbarius; and the kites by the Gampsonyx swainsoni. The Ecuadorean owl is the Bubo nigrescens. An interesting species of the song birds is popularly known as the “flautero” (flute-bird), which inhabits the eastern forests. Its notes are marvellous imitations of “the most mellow, sweet-sounding flute,” but the singer itself, according to Mr Simson, is “a very insignificant-looking little, greyish-coloured bird,” which “always dies in captivity.” The most interesting group of the smaller birds is that of the hummingbirds, of which the number and variety is astonishing. Some of these have a very wide range, while others are apparently limited to a small district, or to a certain altitude. The best-known fish of Ecuador is the insignificant Pimelodus cyclopum, the only fish found in the streams and lakes of the plateau region. Its fame rests on Humboldt’s publication of the tradition that great numbers of this tiny fish had been thrown out during the eruptions of Imbabura and other volcanoes. Mr Whymper’s explanation of the phenomenon is that the fish are scattered over the land by the sudden overflow during volcanic eruptions of the rivers and lakes which they inhabit. The rivers of the eastern plains are probably stocked with the fish found in the Amazon. On the coast, the Ancon de Sardinas bay is so named from the multitude of small fish (sardinas) which inhabit its waters. Elsewhere there are no fisheries of importance, except those of the Galapagos Islands.

The insect inhabitants of Ecuador, like the birds, include a large number of genera and species, but no complete entomological survey of the country has ever been made, and our knowledge in this respect is insufficient to warrant a detailed description. In one ascent of Pichincha in 1880, Mr Whymper collected 21 species of beetles, all new to science, between 12,000 and 15,600 ft. elevation. On Cotopaxi, at elevations of 13,000 to 15,800 ft., 18 species of the genus Colpodes were collected, of which 16 were new. This may be considered a fair illustration of the situation in Ecuador so far as natural history exploration is concerned. Of the Machachi basin, near Quito, which he calls a “zoologist’s paradise,” Mr Whymper writes (Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator): “Butterflies above, below and around; now here, now there, by many turns and twists displaying the brilliant tessellation of their under-sides.... May-flies and dragon-flies danced in the sunlight; lizards darted across the paths; and legions of spiders pervaded the grass, many very beautiful—frosted—silver backs, or curious, like the saltigrades, who took a few steps and then gave a leap. There were crickets in infinite numbers; and flies innumerable, from slim daddy-long-legs to ponderous, black, hairy fellows known to science as Dejeaniae; hymenopterous insects in profusion, including our old friend the bishop of Ambato (possibly Dielis), in company with another formidable stinger, with chrome antennae, called by the natives ’the Devil’; and occasional Phasmas (caballo de palo) crawling painfully about, like animated twigs.” This description refers to a fertile sub-tropical oasis on the partially barren plateau; below in the forested lowlands, where tropical conditions prevail, the numbers and varieties are many times greater. The Coleoptera are especially numerous; Mr Whymper took home with him 206 species which had been identified and described up to 1892, most of them from the uplands and most of them new to science. The total number of species in Ecuador is roughly estimated to be 8000. The Hymenoptera are also numerous, but less so than the Lepidoptera, with which the mountain slopes and sunny, open spaces seem to be literally covered. Of moths alone Mr Whymper took away with him specimens representing no less than 23 genera, with a probable addition of 13 genera more among his undescribed specimens, the largest of which (an Erebus odora) was 7¼ in. across the wings. Among the Diptera, which includes a very wide range of genera and species, are some of a highly troublesome character, though on the whole, Mr Whymper did not find the flies and mosquitoes so. His explorations, however, did not extend to the eastern region, where the mosquitoes are usually described by travellers as extremely troublesome. Sand-flies are common, and in the eastern forests the tiny piúm fly (Trombidium, sp.?) is a veritable pest. Of the insects which infest dwellings and prey upon their human inmates, such as fleas, bed-bugs, roaches, &c., Ecuador has more than a bountiful supply. Lice-eating is a widely prevalent habit among the Indians and mestizos, and demonstrates how numerous these parasites are among the people. A good illustration of the prevalence of house-infesting animals and insects is given by Mr Whymper (op. cit. p. 391), who made a collection of 50 different specimens of the vermin which infested his bedroom in Guayaquil.

Population.—The indigenous population of Ecuador was originally composed of two distinct races—the Quitus and Caras, the former being the older, and the latter presumably of Quichua origin. The Caras, according to tradition, entered the country from the coast, and had thoroughly established themselves there long before the conquest by the Inca rulers Tupac-Yupanqui and his son Huayna-Capac. This conquest was comparatively easy because the Caras spoke a dialect of the same language, and were not greatly unlike their conquerors in manners and customs. The present Indian population of Ecuador, excepting those of the trans-Andean region, may be considered as descendants of these two races. They are subjected to incredible abuses under Spanish colonial rule, their numbers being reduced to a fraction of the former population, and even yet they are subjected to a kind of debt-bondage which is slavery in all but the name. Notwithstanding all this they still represent from two-thirds to three-fourths of the actual population of Ecuador. East of the Andes the forests are inhabited by tribes of what are termed “aucas” or “infieles” (infidels)—Indians who are independent of both church and political control. Missions have been established among some of the tribes, but their influence reaches only a small part of the wild inhabitants of this extensive region.

The principal tribes are the Quijos or Canelos, who are settled about the headwaters of the Napo, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, and are in great part grouped about the missions; the Jivaros who inhabit the valley of the Pastaza; the Zaparos who occupy the forest region between the Pastaza and Napo; the Piojes of the middle Napo, and eastward to the Putumayo; and the Iquitos and Mazanes of the lower Napo and Tigre, chiefly in territory occupied by Peru. The Jivaros are the best known of these tribes because of their successful resistance to the Spanish invaders. They are still independent of political control, live in permanent settlements, till the soil (producing Indian corn, beans, yucca and plantains), and have developed some rude manufactures. The Zaparos are less homogeneous, some of their hordes living in a state of complete savagery. They are classified with the Guaranis of Brazil, whom they resemble in many particulars. The Piojes live in permanent communities and cultivate the soil. The total number of “aucas” or uncivilized Indians in the republic has been estimated at about 200,000, but this estimate covered a larger area than Ecuador actually occupies and is evidently too high. Their settlements are usually small and very much scattered, and their aggregate number is evidently much under the earlier estimates. An official estimate given to Mr Whymper in 1880, however, places the population of Oriente (the eastern territory) at 80,000, which is probably more nearly correct.

No general census has ever been taken in Ecuador, and estimates are little better than vague conjectures. One of these estimates, that published by P.F. Cevallos for 1889, which has been generally accepted, gave the total population as 1,272,161, and these figures have been used with but slight changes for various later estimates. A later official estimate appeared in 1900 in La République de l’Équateur et sa participation à l’Exposition Universelle de 1900, which gives for the provinces practically the same figures as those of Cevallos, and at the same time assumes the total for the whole republic to be 1,500,000. The white population is estimated at 100,000 to 120,000, which probably includes many of mixed ancestry, and the mixed bloods at 300,000 to 450,000. The tendency is for the mestizo who dwells in Indian communities to revert to the Indian type, and it is probable that the larger estimate is nearer the truth. On the other hand mestizos who live among the whites and form new alliances with them eventually class themselves as whites wherever their social condition has been improved. As a rule, the mestizos of Ecuador are ignorant, indolent and non-progressive. As in Colombia they are the artizans and small traders and the Indians are the farm labourers. The land is held by a few proprietors, and caste sentiment is strong among those who claim unmixed European descent; consequently the mestizos have limited opportunities to improve their condition.

The whites form an exclusive governing caste, as in Chile. The territory of the republic is divided among a very few of them, and its government is in their hands.

In the hot seaboard districts there are a small number of negroes, and a somewhat larger number of their crosses with the other two races. The majority of these are to be found in the northern provinces. There are comparatively few negroes and mulattoes on the colder plateaus. Villavicencio estimated their numbers at 7831 pure negroes and 36,592 mixed bloods, which is probably not far from the correct totals.

The foreign population is small, the total being estimated at about 6000, of which 5000 are natives of the neighbouring Latin republics, 700 Europeans and Americans, and 300 Chinese.

Territorial Divisions and Towns.—The republic is divided into 15 provinces and one territory. The Galapagos Islands were declared a dependency of the province of Guayas in 1885, but are practically independent and constitute a second territory under the administration of jefe territorial appointed by the national executive.

The official estimate (La République de l’Équateur et sa participation à l’Exposition Universelle de 1900) gives the data for the provinces and their capitals, which are shown on the next page.

These population figures are very nearly the same as those given by Cevállos for 1889. If the population of the Oriente be taken as 80,000, the aggretate is very nearly the same. The population of the provincial capitals is in some cases over-estimated, especially for Guayaquil and Quito, neither of which could have had 50,000 at the date of this estimate. The population of Quito in May 1906 was 50,841, of which 1365 were foreigners. As for the areas of the provinces the figures need not be questioned except those for the Oriente territory, which are much too large for the region actually occupied by Ecuador, and for the Galapagos Islands which are described by competent authorities as 2400 sq. m. The population of these islands was 400 (principally convicts) on Chatham Island in 1901, about 115 on Albemarle and 3 on Charles Island in 1903. Besides the provincial capitals already noted, there are no large and important towns in the country. The largest of the smaller towns is probably Jipijapa, in the province of Manabi, which is the centre of the Panama hat industry and had in 1900 an estimated population of 6000, nearly all Indians.

Provinces.

Area.

Population.

Capital.

Population.

 

sq. m.

 

 

 

Carchi

1495

40,000

Tulcan

5,000

Imbabura

2416

68,000

Ibarra

5,000

Pichincha

6219

205,000

Quito

80,000

Léon

2595

109,600

Latacunga

12,000

Tunguragua

1686

103,000

Ambato

8,000

Chimborazo

2990

122,000

Riobamba

12,000

Bolivar

1260

43,000

Guaranda

6,000

Cañar

1519

64,000

Azogues

4,000

Azuay

3874

132,400

Cuenca

30,000

Loja

3707

66,000

Loja

10,000

El Oro

2340

32,600

Machala

3,200

Guayas

8216

98,100

Guayaquil

60,000

Los Rios

2296

32,800

Babahoyo

3,000

Manabi

7893

64,100

Portoviejo

5,000

Esmeraldas

5465

14,600

Esmeraldas

6,000

Oriente (ter.)

unknown

 

 

 

Galapagos Is.

2865

2,000

· ·

· ·

Communications.—The first railway to be completed in Ecuador was the line between Guayaquil and Quito, 290 m. in length, the last section of which was formally opened at Quito on the 25th of June 1908. It belongs to an American company, and had been under construction for many years. Lines from Puerto Bolívar to Machala, province of El Oro, and another from Bahia de Caráquez to Chone, were under construction in 1908. Several lines were also projected, two to penetrate the Ecuadorean montana. There is only one highway in the country on which vehicles can be used, the paved road extending southward from Quito 115 m. on the Guayaquil route, which was begun by Garcia Moreno but has been allowed to fall into neglect. Other roads have been projected to the coast and one to the eastern territory. The ordinary roads are rough mule-tracks. These are difficult at all times, and in the rainy season are quite impassable. On the Pacific lowlands the rivers Guayas, Daule, Vinces and Yaguachi have about 200 m. of navigable channels in the rainy season, and are used for the transportation of produce and merchandise. There are also several short river channels along the coast which are used by planters for the same purpose. A great part of the country, however, is still compelled to use the most primitive means of communication—mule paths, fords in the smaller streams in the dry season, and rude suspension bridges across deep gorges and swift mountain torrents. The latter are usually constructed from the tough fibre of the Agave americana and consist of one or more cables. When of one cable, called the taravita, the passenger and his luggage are drawn across in a rude kind of basket suspended from it; but when two or more cables are used, transverse sticks of bamboo and reeds are laid upon them, forming a rude prototype of the regular suspension bridge. Such a bridge is called a chimba-chaca, and is very hazardous for an unpractised foot. In 1907 there were 2564 m. of telegraph lines in operation, connecting Quito with all the principal towns. The national capital is connected with the submarine cable at Santa Elena (via Guayaquil) and at Tumaco, in Colombia. Guayaquil is provided with tramway and telephone lines. These public services are under the general supervision of the Minister of Public Instruction, Posts and Telegraphs.

Commerce.—Ecuador has no merchant marine beyond a few small vessels engaged in the coastwise traffic, some eighteen or twenty river steamers on the Guayas and its tributaries, and a number of steam launches, towboats and various descriptions of barges engaged in the transportation of produce and goods on the rivers. The ocean-going foreign trade of the country is carried wholly in foreign vessels, for the regular lines of which Guayaquil is a principal port of call. Less frequent calls are made at Esmeraldas and some of the other small ports on the coast, of which there are nine in all. Most of these are difficult of access and their trade is unimportant. The total trade of the republic in 1905, according to returns published by the Guayaquil Chamber of Commerce, amounted to only £3,429,955, of which £1,573,389 (15,733,891 sucrés) were credited to imports, and £1,856,566 (18,565,668 sucrés) to exports. Of these totals, all but £127,532 of the imports and £441,679 of the exports passed through the port of Guayaquil. The great poverty of the people has been a serious obstacle to the development of a larger commerce.

Agriculture.—The agricultural industries on which the export trade depends are almost wholly restricted to the western lowlands, and include cacao, coffee, cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, yucca and sweet potatoes. The Guayas basin and the district about Machala are celebrated for their cacao, and produce about one-third of the world’s supply. It is the staple product of the country. Coffee is produced on the lower slopes of the Cordilleras and is of excellent quality. The production is small, but would be increased at remunerative prices. During the American civil war the planters of Ecuador entered largely into the production of cotton, which at that time yielded large profits, but the industry has declined to very insignificant proportions since then because of inability to compete with the lower cost of production in the United States. The output of sugar and tobacco is small, but could be largely increased, as the conditions of soil and climate are favourable. Much of the sugar-cane produced is turned into rum, which is consumed in the country. The tobacco grown is of excellent quality. Efforts have been made to promote the cultivation of indigo, but without much success. On the uplands, wheat, Indian corn, oats, barley, potatoes and vegetables of many kinds are successfully cultivated, but wholly for home consumption. The vine is successfully grown in the warm upland valleys, both for its fruit and for the production of wine. The staple foods for the common people are potatoes on the plateau (which are chiefly consumed in the form of locro, or potato-soup) and yucca- or cassava-meal in the warmer regions. Although cattle and horses were not known before the Spanish conquest, they have become since then important products of the country. The best grazing lands are on the lower elevations west of the Cordilleras in certain districts of the plateau and on the slopes of some of the higher Andes, as on Chimborazo and Antisana. Horses and mules are reared for export on a small scale, and sheep for their wool, which is used in home manufactures.

Forest Products.—The forest and other natural products include rubber, cinchona bark, ivory-nuts, mocora and toquilla fibre for the manufacture of hats, hammocks, &c., cabaya fibre for shoes and cordage, vegetable wool (Bombax ceiba), sarsaparilla, vanilla, cochineal, cabinet woods, fruit, resins, &c. The original source of the Peruvian bark of commerce, the Cinchona calisaya, is completely exhausted, and the “red bark” derived from C. succirubra, is now the principal source of supply from Ecuador. Guaranda is the centre of the industry, but bark gatherers are to be found everywhere in the forest regions. The rubber-gathering industry is comparatively new. The product is derived from the Castilloa elastica, the Heveas not being found west of the Andes.

Minerals.—The mineral resources are much inferior to those of Colombia and Peru. Gold is found in the province of El Oro, where the great Zaruma and other companies have opened a number of mines. It is also found in the provinces of Loja, Esmeraldas, and in the river-beds along the eastern slopes of the Andes. Quicksilver has been mined at Azogues, in the province of Cañar, and is also to be found in Azuay. Iron ores and lead are credited to several provinces, and platinum has been found in Esmeraldas, where emerald mines have been worked ever since the Spanish conquest. Coal of good quality has been found in Azuay and at other points, and petroleum is known to exist in several localities. Salt springs near Riobamba and at Salinas, in Imbabura, have long been used by the natives in the manufacture of salt.

Manufactures.—The manufacturing industries are chiefly of a primitive character and have been developed to meet local necessities. There are some cotton factories and sugar mills provided with modern machinery, but the cotton and woollen cloths of the country are commonly coarse and manufactured in the most primitive manner. Some of these goods are sent into southern Colombia, but they are chiefly made for the local market. Hats and hammocks are made from the fibres of the mocora and toquilla palms, and sandals from the fibre of the Agave americana. The hats are an article of export, and are known abroad as Panama hats. Hand-made laces of admirable workmanship are made in some localities, especially on the plateau about Quito. Among other manufactories, all for the home market, may be mentioned: flour-mills, sugar refineries, rum distilleries, breweries, chocolate factories, a candle factory, saw-mills and tanneries.

Government.—Constitutionally, the government of Ecuador is that of a centralized republic, whose powers are defined by a written constitution and whose chief organs are an executive consisting of a president and vice-president, and a national congress consisting of two houses, a senate and a chamber of deputies. Revolutionary changes, however, have been very frequent in Ecuador, and no less than eleven constitutions were adopted between 1830 and 1909.

The constitution adopted in 1906 succeeded that of 1884 (amended in 1887 and 1897), and its terms may be given here, subject to what may be regarded as the extra-constitutional powers vested in the executive. Executive power is vested in a president and vice-president elected for periods of four years by a direct vote of the people. (Under the constitution of 1884 the official terms of these two officers were not wholly synchronous, the vice-president’s term beginning with the president’s third year.) These officials cannot be re-elected to succeed themselves. The president, whose salary is 12,000 sucrés per annum, has a limited veto power, and may convene extraordinary sessions of Congress for a specified purpose, but he has no further authority over that body. He appoints the diplomatic and consular representatives of the republic and the governors of the provinces, exercises a limited control over the administration of justice and public instruction through the appointment of officials, and is chief of the small military force maintained by the republic. The construction of railways with public funds and under government supervision also places him at the head of a very important public service. The president is assisted by a cabinet of five ministers:—foreign relations and justice; interior and public works; finance; war; public instruction, posts and telegraphs—all of whom may be impeached by congress. The executive authority is also partially exercised by a council of state composed of 15 members, including the five cabinet ministers, of which the vice-president is ex-officio president. The council has important advisory functions, and must be consulted by the president on every important measure or appointment. The provinces are administered by governors chosen by the national executive; the departments by jefes politicos (political chiefs); and the municipalities by tenientes politicos (political lieutenants). The Galapagos Islands are under a jefe territorial (territorial chief), Chatham Island being a penal colony and governed by special laws.

The congressional organization is similar to that of the majority of South American states. The senate is composed of 32 members (2 from each province) elected for two years, one-half the number being renewed each two years. The chamber is composed of 42 deputies, who are elected by the provinces for a period of two years, on a basis of one representative for each 30,000 inhabitants and one supplementary representative for an additional 15,000. A senator must be at least 35 years of age, and a deputy 25. The elections are direct, and members of both houses may be re-elected. The immunities of legislators begin 30 days before the opening session of congress, and terminate 30 days after its dissolution. Congress meets at Quito on the 10th of August, and remains in session for a period of 60 days, but its sessions may be extended or extraordinary sessions called for specified purposes. The right of suffrage is restricted to literate male adults.

The judicial branch of the government is composed of a supreme court, located at Quito, consisting of 5 judges and a fiscal (public prosecutor) appointed by the executive; six superior courts (in Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca, Riobamba, Loja and Portoviejo) with a total of 9 judges; a Tribunal de Cuentas of seven members at Quito; and various municipal courts, or alcaldes, in the chief towns of the departments. There are civil courts of first and second instance in the larger towns, and consular courts in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca with jurisdiction in commercial cases. There are also police commissaries in the departments and justices of the peace in the municipalities, the latter having jurisdiction in civil cases where the amount involved does not exceed 200 sucrés. The laws of Ecuador are based on the old Spanish laws and procedure, and include civil, criminal and commercial codes.

Army.—The army, according to an official report of 1900, consisted of 4 battalions of infantry (about 3690 strong), 3 brigades of artillery (1362), and 2 regiments of cavalry (468), in all, about 5520 men, rank and file. In 1908 this force was reported to comprise 4350 men. The national guard is composed of three classes: actives—all enrolled citizens of 20 to 38 years; auxiliaries—enrolled citizens of 38 to 44 years; and passives—enrolled citizens of 44 to 50 years. These were estimated at 95,329 men. There is a military school at Quito and a naval school at Guayaquil.

Education.—Although primary instruction is free, and is obligatory for children of 6 to 12 years, a considerable part Of the population is unprovided with schools and is indifferent in regard to them. An official report for 1900 gives the number of primary schools as 1297, and the number of pupils in attendance as about 80,000. The secondary schools numbered 37, with 371 teachers and about 4500 pupils. Higher instruction includes the technical and professional schools with the three universities of Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca, and 6 schools of “trades and professions” (artes y oficios) in as many provinces. The old University of Quito has a staff of 32 professors divided into 5 faculties: Philosophy and Belles-Lettres, Law, Medicine, Physical and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. There are also in Quito a school of agriculture, astronomical observatory, botanical garden, museum and national printing office, all apparently under the supervision of the University.

Church.—According to the constitution of 1884, “the religion of the Republic is the Roman Catholic Apostolic, and all others are excluded.” The only opposition which the Church has ever had to encounter has been from the “liberal” element within itself, and thus has arisen, seemingly from political motives, a desire to restrict clerical influence in political affairs. This influence has been exercised to an extreme in Ecuador, so much so, in fact, that its government at times was more nearly a theocracy than a republic. The growth of liberalism finally began to produce results. In 1889 the tithes from which the Church revenues had been derived were abolished, and a tax of 3 per mil. on real estate was substituted. In 1902 a signal victory was won in a law permitting civil marriage, but in 1904 a social revolution was effected by legislation, which placed the Church under State control, forbade the foundation of new religious orders and admission into the country of new religious communities, and provided that the members of the episcopate must be citizens of Ecuador. The higher dignitaries of the Church are an archbishop at Quito, and six suffragan bishops at Cuenca, Loja, Ibarra, Riobamba, Guayaquil and Manabi.

Finance.—The revenues of the republic are derived from import and export duties, liquor, tobacco and stamp taxes, inheritance tax, salt, gunpowder and playing cards monopolies, consular charges, and sundry miscellaneous receipts, including those from posts, telegraphs and railways. Up to 1907 the customs duties were increased by surtaxes amounting at that time to 100%. The minister of finance proposed to abolish these surtaxes and double all the rates of duties involved. On exports, however, all the duties were to be abolished except those on cacao, coffee, hides, rubber, tagua (ivory nuts), hat fibre, hammock fibre and tobacco. For 1907 the revenues were £1,424,770 and the expenditures £1,383,122.

On the 10th of October 1906, when the report of the provisional government created by the revolution of the preceding January presented its financial report to a national assembly, the total obligations of the country were stated to be:—

 

Sucrés. 

Railway bonds, 12,282,000 sucrés gold at 107% premium

25,423,740

Banco del Ecuador, advances

3,000,000

Banco Comercial y Agrocola, idem

2,400,000

Internal debt

739,575

Condor bonds

757,000

French Finance Corporation

887,000

 

————

Total

33,207,315

   In £ sterling at 10 sucrés per £

3,320,731

The foreign debt of the republic, which in 1898 stood at £693,160 in bonds, was assumed by the Guayaquil & Quito Railway Co. under contracts of 1897, 1898, 1899 and 1900, the government guaranteeing interest on the sum of £2,520,000 railway mortgage bonds for 33 years and recognizing the external debt at 35% of its face value. This debt originated in 1830, when Ecuador seceded from the Colombian confederacy and was charged with 21½% of the indebtedness of the three states. In 1855 the amount was fixed at £1,824,000, and in 1892 it was converted into a new consolidated debt of £750,000. Payments of interest and amortization had been very irregular, and its transfer to a foreign company as the price of a railway concession put an end to a transaction which had been a serious discredit to the country. The amount outstanding on the 31st of December 1907 was 10,808,000 sucrés (£1,080,800). It should be said that the difficulties in regard to this debt arose from a feeling in Ecuador that the part assigned to it in 1830 was much too large, and that it was contracted almost wholly for the benefit of the two northern republics, Colombia and Venezuela.

Money and Measures.—Under the law of 1898, which came into effect on the 4th of June 1900, gold is made the monetary standard in Ecuador, the legal tender of silver being limited to 10 sucrés, and banks of issue being required to hold at least one-half their metallic reserves in gold coin. Previously there had been much confusion in the circulating medium because of the depreciated value of the Quito currency in comparison with that of Guayaquil, but the new law has corrected the anomaly and has given a simple and uniform medium for the whole country. The coinage under the law of 1898 consists of the gold condor, of 10 sucrés, which weighs 8.136 grams, contains 7.3224 grams of fine gold, and is equal to the English pound sterling in value; the silver sucré, of 100 centavos, equivalent to 24d. in value; and smaller coins of silver, nickel and copper, the denominations being decimal parts of the sucré. The sucré received its name from the portrait of General Sucré engraved on the coin, and is legal tender up to 10 sucrés. The paper money circulation consists of the issues of two Guayaquil banks—the Banco del Ecuador, and the Banco Comercial y Agricola, whose united issues on June 30th, 1906, amounted to 7,414,140 sucrés (£741,414). The Bank of Quito at one time issued notes which, according to Whymper, were not current at and south of Riobamba, but it does not appear that this bank is authorized to issue its notes under the new law. The metallic money nominally in circulation on the 30th of June 1906, amounted to 2,587,667 sucrés gold and 2,522,802 sucrés silver. Although the metric system was adopted in 1856, the old Spanish weights and measures—the quintal, libra, vara and fanega—are still in use, the quintal being equivalent to about 101 ℔

Antiquities.—Throughout Ecuador there are still considerable remains of the architectural and artistic skill of the ante-European period. At Cañar, to the north-east of Cuenca, stands the Incapirca, a circular rampart of finely hewn stone, enclosing an open area with a roofless but well-preserved building in the centre; not far off is the Inca-chungana, a very much smaller enclosure, probably the remains of a pavilion; and in the same neighbourhood the image of the sun and a small cabinet are carved on the face of a rock called Intihuaicu. On one of the hills running from Pichincha to the Esmeraldas there are remains at Paltatamba of a temple and a conical tower, the buttresses of a bridge composed of stone and bitumen, portions of a great causeway, and numerous tombs from which mummies and plates of silver have been obtained. At Hantuntaqui similar sepulchral mounds, called tolas, may be seen, as well as traces of military structures. On the plain of Callo, near Cotopaxi, at a height of 8658 ft., the ruins of an Incarial palace, Pachusala, are utilized by the hacienda; and a conical hill at its side is supposed to be of artificial construction. The remains of another fortress and palace are preserved at Pomallacta, and in the neighbouring pueblo of Achupallas an ancient temple of the sun now serves as parish church. In many localities, especially in Imbabura, pottery and various objects are found belonging to the pre-Colombian period, among which five and six rayed stars (casse-têtes) are very numerous.

(A. J. L.)

History.—The territory of the republic of Ecuador, when first it becomes dimly visible in the grey dawn of American history, appears to be inhabited by upwards of fifty independent tribes, among which the Quitus seem to hold the most important position. About A.D. 280 a foreign tribe is said to have forced their way inland up the valley of the Esmeraldas; and the kingdom which they founded at Quito lasted for about 1200 years, and was gradually extended, both by war and alliance, over many of the neighbouring dominions. In 1460, during the reign of the fourteenth Caran Shyri, or king of the Cara nation, Hualcopo Duchisela, the conquest of Quito was undertaken by Tupac Yupanqui, the Inca of Peru; and his ambitious schemes were, not long after his death, successfully carried out by his son Huayna-Capac, who inflicted a decisive defeat on the Quitonians in the battle of Hatuntaqui, and secured his position by marrying Pacha, the daughter of the late Shyri. By his will the conqueror left the kingdom of Quito to Atahuallpa, his son by this alliance; while the Peruvian throne was assigned to Huascar, an elder son by his Peruvian consort. War soon broke out between the two kingdoms, owing to Huascar’s pretensions to supremacy over his brother; but it ended in the defeat and imprisonment of the usurper, and the establishment of Atahuallpa as master both of Quito and Cuzco. The fortunate monarch, however, had not long to enjoy his success; for Pizarro and his Spaniards were already at the door, and by 1533 the fate of the country was sealed. As soon as the confusions and rivalries of the first occupation were suppressed, the recent kingdom of Quito was made a presidency of the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru, and no change of importance took place till 1710. In that year it was attached to the viceroyalty of Santa Fé; but it was restored to Peru in 1722. When, towards the close of the century, the desire for independence began to manifest itself throughout the Spanish colonies of South America, Quito did not remain altogether indifferent. The Quitonian doctor Eugenio Espejo, and his fellow-citizen Don Juan Pio Montufar, entered into hearty co-operation with Nariño and Zea, the leaders of the revolutionary movement at Santa Fé; and it was at Espejo’s suggestion that the political association called the Escuela de Concordia was instituted at Quito. It was not till 1809, however, that the Quitonians made a real attempt to throw off the Spanish yoke; and both on that occasion and in 1812 the royal general succeeded in crushing the insurrection. In 1820 the people of Guayaquil took up the cry of liberty; and in spite of several defeats they continued the contest, till at length, under Antonio José de Sucré, who had been sent to their assistance by Bolivar, and reinforced by a Peruvian contingent under Andres de Santa Cruz, they gained a complete victory on May 22, 1822, in a battle fought on the side of Mount Pichincha, at a height of 10,200 ft. above the sea. Two days after, the Spanish president of Quito, Don Melchor de Aymeric, capitulated, and the independence of the country was secured. A political union was at once effected with New Granada and Venezuela on the basis of the republican constitution instituted at Cucuta in July 1821—the triple confederation taking the name of Colombia.

A disagreement with Peru in 1828 resulted in the invasion of Ecuador and the temporary occupation of Cuenca and Guayaquil by Peruvian forces; but peace was restored in the following year after the Ecuadorian victory at Tarqui. In the early part of 1830 a separation was effected from the Colombian federation, and the country was proclaimed an independent republic. General Juan José Flores was the first president, and in spite of many difficulties, both domestic and foreign, he managed to maintain a powerful position in the state for about 15 years. Succeeded in 1835 by Vicente Rocafuerte, he regained the presidency in 1839, and was elected for the third time in 1843; but shortly afterwards he accepted the title of generalissimo and a sum of 20,000 pesos, and left the country to his rivals. One of the most important measures of his second presidency was the establishment of peace and friendship with Spain. Roca, who next attained to power, effected a temporary settlement with Colombia, concluded a convention with England against the slave trade, and made a commercial treaty with Belgium. Diego Noboa, elected in 1850 after a period of great confusion, recalled the Jesuits, produced a rupture with New Granada by receiving conservative refugees, and thus brought about his own deposition and exile. The democratic Urbina now became practically dictator, and as the attempt of Flores to reinstate Noboa proved a total failure, he was quickly succeeded in 1856 by General Francisco Robles, who, among other progressive measures, secured the adoption of the French system of coinage, weights and measures. He abdicated in 1859 and left the country, after refusing to ratify the treaty with Peru, by which the defender of Guayaquil had obtained the raising of the siege. Dr Gabriel Garcia Moreno, professor of chemistry, the recognized leader of the conservative party at Quito, was ultimately elected by the national convention of 1861. Distrust in his policy, however, was excited by the publication of some of his private correspondence, in which he spoke favourably of a French protectorate, and the army which he sent under Flores to resist the encroachments of Mosquera, the president of New Granada, was completely routed. His first resignation in 1864 was refused; but the despotic acts by which he sought to establish a dictatorship only embittered his opponents, and in September 1865 he retired from office. While he had endeavoured to develop the material resources of the country, he had at the same time introduced retrograde measures in regard to religion and education. The principal event in the short presidency of his successor, Gerónimo Carrion (May 1865-Nov. 1867), was the alliance with Chile and Peru against Spain, and the banishment of all Spanish subjects. Several important changes were made by congress in the period between his resignation and the election of Xavier Espinosa, January 1868: the power of the president to imprison persons regarded as dangerous to public order was annulled; and the immediate naturalization of Bolivians, Chilians, Peruvians and Colombians was authorized. Espinosa had hardly entered on his office when, in August 1868, the country was visited by an earthquake, in which 30,000 people are said to have perished throughout South America. The public buildings of Quito were laid in ruins; and Ibarra, Otavalo, Cotacachi and several other towns were completely destroyed. Next year a revolution at Quito, under Moreno, brought Espinosa’s presidency to a close; and though the national convention appointed Carvajal to the vacant office, Moreno succeeded in securing his own election in 1870 for a term of six years. His policy had undergone no alteration since 1865: the same persistent endeavour was made to establish a religious despotism, in which the supremacy of the president should be subordinate only to the higher supremacy of the clergy.

President Moreno was eventually assassinated at Quito, in August 1875, and Dr Borrero was elected to the presidency, but his tenure of power was short. A revolution headed by General Veintemilla, the Radical leader, then military commandant at Guayaquil, broke out in 1876, and on the 14th of December of that year the government forces under General Aparicio were completely routed at Galte. Veintemilla was proclaimed president, and in 1877 was duly elected by the cortes. He altered the constitution in a more Liberal direction, and struck various blows at the Clerical party, among other things abolishing the concordat with Rome. In 1878 Veintemilla caused himself to be declared elected as president for a term of four years. At the expiration of this period the president assumed dictatorial powers and remained in office as chief of the executive. This action on the part of General Veintemilla led to a union between the Clericals and Moderate Liberals, and resulted in a popular rising throughout the republic, ending in his defeat and overthrow. His power was first restricted to Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, and finally General Rinaldo Flores drove him from Guayaquil, and Veintemilla fled (July 1883) to Peru. Dr Placido Caamaño was then called upon to take charge temporarily, and on the 17th of February 1884 was definitely elected for the presidential period terminating in 1888. Several revolutionary outbreaks occurred during the Caamaño administration, but were successfully suppressed. In 1888 Dr Antonio Flores succeeded Caamaño, the four years following being passed in peaceful conditions. In 1892 Dr Luis Cordero was elected, his administration again plunging the country into an epoch of internal disturbance.

The cause of the troubles under President Cordero was the assistance lent by Ecuador to Chile in the matter of the sale of the cruiser Esmeralda to the Japanese government in 1894, in the middle of the Japanese-Chinese War. The government of Chile arranged the sale of the Esmeralda, but wished to be free from all danger of international complications in the affair. To this end the transfer of the vessel was made to Ecuador, and she proceeded to Ecuadorian waters. On arriving at the Galapagos Islands the flag of Ecuador was replaced by that of Japan and the vessel handed over to the representatives of that nation sent for the purpose. When the part played by President Cordero in this transaction became known, an outburst of popular indignation occurred. An insurrection, headed by General Eloy Alfaro, followed; and after desultory skirmishing extending over a period of nearly a year the government forces were finally routed, President Cordero abandoning his office and escaping from the country.

General Alfaro then assumed dictatorial powers as supreme chief of the nation, continuing in this capacity until the 6th of February 1897, on which date he was declared to be elected president of the republic. A series of revolutionary movements against the administration of President Alfaro occurred in the course of the next few years. Many of these risings were due to the intrigues of the Church party, and in view of these circumstances President Alfaro curtailed the influence of the clergy in several directions. On the 31st of August 1901 General Alfaro peacefully handed over the presidency to his elected successor, General Leonidas Plaza.

General Plaza continued the anticlerical policy of his predecessor. Civil marriage and divorce were introduced, and in 1904 all religions were placed on a position of equality in the eye of the law, and the foundation of new monasteries and convents was forbidden. The final year of Plaza’s tenure of office was marked by a still stronger measure, all the property of the church being declared to be national property, and let to the highest bidders. In 1905 the Opposition made an effort to effect a change of policy, and were successful in obtaining the election of Lizaro Garcia, a well-to-do merchant and a director of the Banco commercial y Agricola. General Alfaro, however, appealed to arms, ejected Garcia from office, and made himself ruler with practically dictatorial powers.

The more recent history of Ecuador would not be complete without a reference to the work of Mr Archer Harman (b. 1860), an American railway builder and financier whose connexion with the construction of the Guayaquil and Quito railway began in 1897. To his personal energy and enterprise, as manager of the railway company, was largely due the continued prosecution of this difficult engineering undertaking, in connexion with which he was responsible for a thorough reconstruction of Ecuador finance. He thus came to exercise a powerful influence on the internal progress of the country.

See C.E. Akers, History of South America, 1854-1904 (London, 1904); H.W. Bates, Central and South America (London, 1882); Pedro F. Cevallos, Resumen de la historia del Ecuador (Guayaquil, 1886); Hans Meyer, In den Hoch-Anden von Ecuador (Berlin 1907); A.H. Keane, Stanford’s Compendium, vol. i. (1904); W. Reiss and A. Stübel, Das Hochgebirge der Republik Ecuador (Berlin, 1892-1898); Edward Whymper, Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator (London, 1892); T. Wolf, Geografia y geologia del Ecuador (Leipzig, 1892); A. Stübel, Skizzen aus Ecuador (Berlin, 1886); Die Vulkanberge von Ecuador (Berlin, 1897); Handbook of Ecuador (Bureau of the American Republics, Washington, 1892); The World’s Work, vol. ii. pp. 1271-1277; Engineering News (New York), vol. 52, pp. 117-119; Bulletin of Internat. Bureau of American Republics for July 1900, p. 26, and for August 1908, pp. 280-282; Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Council of Foreign Bondholders, pp. 115, 117.

1 See J. Siemiradzki, “Geologische Reisenotizen aus Ecuador,” Neues Jahrb. f. Min., Beil. Band iv. (1886, pp. 195-227, pl. vii.); Th. Wolf, Geografia y geologia del Ecuador, publicada por orden del Supremo Gobierno de la Republica (Leipzig, 1892); W. Reiss and A. Stübel, Reisen in Sud-America. Das Hochgebirge der Republik Ecuador (Berlin, 1892-1902).

ECZEMA (Gr. ἔκζεμα, a cutaneous eruption), one of the most common and important of all skin diseases, consisting of a catarrhal inflammation of the skin originating without visible external irritation, and characterized in some stage of its evolution by a serous exudation. This definition excludes all those forms of inflammation of the skin (dermatitis), which though they may be identical in course and manifestation are yet caused by chemical or mechanical irritants. For an attack of eczema two conditions are necessary: a predisposition or special irritability of the skin, and a directly exciting cause. The first of these conditions is usually inherited or depends on some underlying constitutional state. Thus any organic lesion which may produce oedema and malnutrition of the cutis and epidermis as in kidney diseases, any condition of imperfect metabolism as in dyspepsia or malnutrition, or seborrhoea, may be the predisposing cause. Another influence that has received increasing attention from skin specialists is that of any nervous shock or prolonged mental strain. A “chill” is followed in most people by an ordinary cold, but in some by an attack of eczema. Again, it may be caused by reflex nervous irritation from the uterus, stomach, &c. In some women it always accompanies menstruation, and in others pregnancy. It is of common occurrence in infancy, being attributed by some specialists to dentition, but by others to seborrhoea. Also there is an undoubted relationship between eczema and certain forms of functional neurosis, of which perhaps asthma is the most striking illustration, some physicians considering the latter trouble to be eczema of the bronchial tubes. Sufferers from rheumatism and gout are also specially prone to eczema, though the exact relationship is a much disputed point. There are yet other cases that are undoubtedly microbic, but the micro-organism cannot produce the lesion unless the soil is suitable. As a rule it is not contagious, though when complicated by micro-organisms it may be auto-inoculable, or more rarely inoculable from one patient to another. Except between the ages of ten and twenty years when menstruation is becoming established, and again at the menopause, males are more liable to be attacked than females. In old age the sex influence is lost.

An attack of eczema is usually described as acute or chronic, but the only distinction lies in the greater or less intensity of the inflammation at the time of description: it has nothing to do with the length of time that the disease has lasted. The illness usually begins with a feeling of itching and burning at the site of the lesion. The skin becomes covered with an erythematous blush, on which numerous tiny vesicles form. Swelling, heat, redness and tension are all present. The vesicles grow larger, run together, and either burst or are broken by the patient’s scratching, a clear fluid exuding which stiffens linen. The discharge does not dry up at once, but continues to exude—hence the name of “weeping eczema” when this is a prominent symptom. In mild cases the symptoms begin to subside in a few days, the exudation growing less and scales and scabs forming, under which new skin is formed. But where the attack is more acute fresh crops of vesicles spring up and the process repeats itself. In some cases papules are the predominant lesions, but in others, especially when the face is attacked, the erythematous condition is more marked. A severe attack of eczema is usually accompanied by some slight constitutional disturbance, but the general health seldom suffers appreciably, unless, as occasionally, the itching is so bad as to make sleep impossible. The irritation and local heat may be out of all proportion to visible changes in the skin, and in neurotic patients the nervous excitement may be extreme. The attack may centre itself on any part of the body, but there are certain places where it more usually begins, such as the bends of the elbows, the backs of the knees and the groins; the groove behind the ears, the scalp, the palms or the soles, and the breasts of women. According to its position the form of the eczema is somewhat modified. On the front of the legs and arms, from the uniform redness it exhibits in these positions, it is known as eczema rubrum. On the scalp it is generally of the seborrhoeic type, and in children, especially when pediculi are present, it will become pustular from microbic infection. On the palms and soles it brings about a thickening of the epidermis which leads to the formation of cracks, and is hence called eczema rimosum.

The disease can best be treated by a combination of internal and external remedies. Internally, when the inflammation is acute, nothing is so good as antimony, since this relieves the arterial tension and thus reduces the local inflammation. But this must never be given when the patient is suffering from depression. In other cases, especially for babies and children, small doses of calomel are very beneficial; strychnine, phosphorus and ergot are all useful at times. When nervous excitement is marked it must be treated with sedatives. Arsenic and iron are both contra-indicated in this disease, since they increase blood formation and hence stimulate the eczematous process. Internal treatment is always best when combined with local treatment, but as a preliminary to this all crusts and scales must first be removed to allow the remedy free access to the disease. Locally the aim is (1) to overcome any source of irritation, (2) to protect the inflamed surface from the air and from microbic infection, and (3) to relieve the itching. The diet should be simple but nourishing, and all hygienic precautions must be taken.

EDAM, a town of Holland in the province of North Holland, close to the Zuider Zee, about 13 m. N.N.E. of Amsterdam by steam tramway. It is connected with the Zuider Zee by a fine canal protected by a large sea-lock (1828), and has regular steam-boat communication in various directions. Pop. (1900) 6444. The many quaint old brick houses form the chief feature of interest in the town. The façades are frequently adorned with carvings and inscriptions, one of which records the legend of the capture of a siren in 1403, who lived for some time among the people of Edam, but escaped again to the sea. The Great Church of St Nicholas, probably founded in the 14th century, was largely rebuilt after a fire in 1602, which, originating in the church, destroyed nearly the whole town. It contains some fine stained glass and carved woodwork of this period. The Little Church (15th century) was demolished in 1883, except for a portion of the nave and the old tower and steeple, from which the bells curiously project. The town hall dates from 1737, and there is a museum founded in 1895. Edam has some trade in timber, while shipbuilding, rope-spinning and salt-boiling are also carried on. It gives its name to the description of “sweet-milk cheese” (zoetemelks kaas) made throughout North Holland, which is familiar on account of its round shape and red rind.

Edam took its name and origin from the dam built on the little river Ye which joined the great Purmer lake close by. Free access to the Zuider Zee was obtained by the construction of a new dock in 1357, in which year the town also received civic rights from William V. of Bavaria, count of Holland. Owing to the danger of the extension of the Purmer and Beemster lakes, Philip II. of Spain caused a sluice to be built into the dock in 1567. In the next century Edam was a great shipbuilding centre, and nearly the whole of Admiral de Ruyter’s fleet was built here; but in the same century the harbour began to get blocked up, and the importance and industrial activity of the city slowly waned.

EDDA, the title given to two very remarkable collections of old Icelandic literature. Of these only one bears that title from antiquity; the other is called Edda by a comparatively modern misnomer. The word is unknown to any ancient northern language, and is first met with in Rigspula, a fragmentary poem at the end of Codex Wormianus, dated about 1200, where it is introduced as the name or title of a great-grandmother. From the 14th to the 17th century, this word—but no one has formed a reasonable conjecture why—was used to signify the technical laws of Icelandic court metre, Eddu regla, and “Never to have seen Edda” was a modest apology for ignorance of the highest poetic art. The only work known by this name to the ancients was the miscellaneous group of writings put together by Snorri Sturlason (q.v.; 1178-1241), the greatest name in old Scandinavian literature. It is believed that the Edda, as he left it, was completed about 1222. Whether he gave this name to the work is doubtful; the title first occurs in the Upsala Codex, transcribed about fifty years after his death. The collection of Snorri is now known as the Prose or Younger Edda, the title of the Elder Edda being given to a book of ancient mythological poems, discovered by the Icelandic bishop of Skálaholt, Brynjulf Sveinsson, in 1643, and erroneously named by him the Edda of Saemund.

1. The Prose Edda, properly known as Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, was arranged and modified by Snorri, but actually composed, as has been conjectured, between the years 1140 and 1160. It is divided into five parts, the Preface or Formáli, Gylfaginning, Bragaraeður, Skáldskaparmál and Háttatal. The preface bears a very modern character, and simply gives a history of the world from Adam and Eve, in accordance with the Christian tradition. Gylfaginning, or the Delusion of Gylfi, on the other hand, is the most precious compendium which we possess of the mythological system of the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia. Commencing with the adventures of a mythical king Gylfi and the giantess Gefion, and the miraculous formation of the island of Zealand, it tells us that the Aesir, led by Odin, invaded Svithjod or Sweden, the land of Gylfi, and settled there. It is from the Ynglingasaga and from the Gylfaginning that we gain all the information we possess about the conquering deities or heroes who set their stamp upon the religion of the North. Advancing from the Black Sea northwards through Russia, and westward through Esthonia, the Aesir seem to have overrun the south lands of Scandinavia, not as a horde but as an immigrant aristocracy. The Eddaic version, however, of the history of the gods is not so circumstantial as that in the Ynglingasaga; it is, on the other hand, distinguished by an exquisite simplicity and archaic force of style, which give an entirely classical character to its mythical legends of Odin and of Loki. The Gylfaginning is written in prose, with brief poetic insertions. The Bragaraeður, or sayings of Bragi, are further legends of the deities, attributed to Bragi, the god of poetry, or to a poet of the same name. The Skáldskaparmál, or Art of Poetry, commonly called Skálda, contains the instructions given by Bragi to Aegir, and consists of the rules and theories of ancient verse, exemplified in copious extracts from Eyvindr Skáldaspillir and other eminent Icelandic poets. The word Skáldskapr refers to the form rather than the substance of verse, and this treatise is almost solely technical in character. It is by far the largest of the sections of the Edda of Snorri, and comprises not only extracts but some long poems, notably the Thorsdrapa of Eilifr Guðrúnarson and the Haustlaung of Thjóðólfr. The fifth section of the Edda, the Háttatal, or Number of Metres, is a running technical commentary on the text of Snorri’s three poems written in honour of Haakon, king of Norway. Affixed to some MS. of the Younger Edda are a list of poets, and a number of philological treatises and grammatical studies. These belong, however, to a later period than the life of Snorri Sturlason.

The three oldest MSS. of the prose Edda all belong to the beginning of the 14th century. The Wurm MS. was sent to Ole Wurm in 1628; the Codex Regius was discovered by the indefatigable bishop Brynjulf Sveinsson in 1640. The most important, however, of these MSS. is the Upsala Codex, an octavo volume written probably about the year 1300. There have been several good editions of the Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, of which perhaps the best is that published by the Arne-Magnaean Society in Copenhagen in 1848-1852, in two vols., edited by a group of scholars under the direction of Jón Sigurdsson. There are English translations by T. Percy, Northern Antiquities, from the French by P.H. Mallet (1770); by G. Webbe Dasent (Stockholm, 1842); by R.B. Anderson (Chicago, 1880).

2. The Elder Edda, Poetic Edda or Saemundar Edda hins froða was entirely unknown until about 1643, when it came into the hands of Brynjulf Sveinsson, who, puzzled to classify it, gave it the title of Edda Saemundi multiscii. Saemund Sigfusson, who was thus credited with the collection of these poems, was a scion of the royal house of Norway, and lived from about 1055 to 1132 in Iceland. The poems themselves date in all probability from the 10th and 11th centuries, and are many of them only fragments of longer heroic chants now otherwise entirely lost. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic forms of Icelandic verse. The author of no one of them is mentioned. It is evident that they were collected from oral tradition; and the fact that the same story is occasionally repeated, in varied form, and that some of the poems themselves bear internal evidence of being more ancient than others, proves that the present collection is only a gathering made early in the middle ages, long after the composition of the pieces, and in no critical spirit. Sophus Bugge, indeed, one of the greatest authorities, absolutely rejects the name of Saemund, and is of opinion that the poetic Edda, as we at present hold it, dates from about 1240. There is no doubt that it was collected in Iceland, and by an Icelander.

The most remarkable and the most ancient of the poems in this priceless collection is that with which it commences, the Völuspá, or prophecy of the Völva or Sibyl. In this chant we listen to an inspired prophetess, “seated on her high seat, and addressing Odin, while the gods listen to her words.”

She sings of the world before the gods were made, of the coming and the meeting of the Aesir, of the origin of the giants, dwarfs and men, of the happy beginning of all things, and the sad ending that shall be in the chaos of Ragnarök. The latter part of the poem is understood to be a kind of necromancy—according to Vigfusson, “the raising of a dead völva”; but the mystical language of the whole, its abrupt transitions and terse condensations, and above all the extinct and mysterious cosmology, an acquaintance with which it presupposes, make the exact interpretation of the Völuspá extremely difficult. The charm and solemn beauty of the style, however, are irresistible, and we are constrained to listen and revere as if we were the auditors of some fugual music devised in honour of a primal and long-buried deity. The melodies of this earliest Icelandic verse, elaborate in their extreme and severe simplicity, are wholly rhythmical and alliterative, and return upon themselves like a solemn incantation. Hávamál, the Lesson of the High One, or Odin, follows next; this contains proverbs and wise saws, and a series of stories, some of them comical, told by Odin against himself. The Vafprúðnismál, or Lesson of Vafprúðnir, is written in the same mystical vein as Völuspá; in it the giant who gives his name to the poem is visited by Odin in disguise, and is questioned by him about the cosmogony and chronology of the Norse religion. Grimnismál, or the Sayings of The Hooded One, which is partly in prose, is a story of Odin’s imprisonment and torture by King Geirrōd. För Skirnis, or the Journey of Skirnir, Harbarðslióð, or the Lay of Hoarbeard, Hymiskviða, or the Song of Hymir, and Aegisdrekka, or the Brewing of Aegir, are poems, frequently composed as dialogue, containing legends of the gods, some of which are so ludicrous that it has been suggested that they were intentionally burlesque. Thrymskviða, or the Song of Thrym, possesses far more poetic interest; it recounts in language of singular force and directness how Thor lost his hammer, stolen by Thrym the giant, how the latter refused to give it up unless the goddess Freyia was given him in marriage, and how Thor, dressed in women’s raiment, personated Freyia, and, slaying Thrym, recovered his hammer. Alvíssmál, or the Wisdom of Allwise, is actually a philological exercise under the semblance of a dialogue between Thor and Alvis the dwarf. In Vegtamskviða, or the Song of Vegtam, Odin questions a völva with regard to the meaning of the sinister dreams of Balder. Rígsmál, or more properly Rígspula, records how the god Heimdall, disguised as a man called Rig, wandered by the sea-shore, where he met the original dwarf pair, Ai and Edda, to whom he gave the power of child-bearing, and thence sprung the whole race of thralls; then he went on and met with Afi and Amma, and made them the parents of the race of churls; then he proceeded until he came to Faðir and Moðir, to whom he gave Jarl, the first of free men, whom he himself brought up, teaching him to shoot and snare, and to use the sword and runes. It is much to be lamented that of this most characteristic and picturesque poem we possess only a fragment. In Hyndluljóð, the Lay of Hyndla, the goddess Freyia rides to question the völva Hyndla with regard to the ancestry of her young paramour Ottar; a very fine quarrel ensues between the prophetess and her visitor. With this poem, the first or wholly mythological portion of the collection closes. What follows is heroic and pseudo-historic. The Völundarkviða, or Song of Völundr, is engaged with the adventures of Völundr, the smith-king, during his stay with Nidud, king of Sweden. Völundr, identical with the Anglo-Saxon Wêland and the German Wieland (O.H.G. Wiolant), is sometimes confused with Odin, the master-smith. This poem contains the beautiful figure of Svanhvít, the swan-maiden, who stays seven winters with Völundr, and then, yearning for her fatherland, flies away home through the dark forest. Helgakviða, Hiörvarðs sonar, the Song of Helgi, the Son of Hiörvarð, which is largely in prose, celebrates the wooing by Helgi of Svava, who, like Atalanta, ends by loving the man with whom she has fought in battle. Two Songs of Helgi the Hunding’s Bane, Helgakviða Hundingsbana, open the long and very important series of lays relating to the two heroic families of the Völsungs and the Niblungs. Including the poems just mentioned, there are about twenty distinct pieces in the poetic Edda which deal more or less directly with this chain of stories. It is hardly necessary to give the titles of these poems here in detail, especially as they are, in their present form, manifestly only fragments of a great poetic saga, possibly the earliest coherent form of the story so universal among the Teutonic peoples. We happily possess a somewhat later prose version of this lost poem in the Völsungasaga, where the story is completely worked out. In many places the prose of the Völsungasaga follows the verse of the Eddaic fragments with the greatest precision, often making use of the very same expressions. At the same time there are poems in the Edda which the author of the saga does not seem to have seen. But if we compare the central portions of the myth, namely Sigurd’s conversation with Fafnir, the death of Regin, the speech of the birds and the meeting with the Valkyrje, we are struck with the extreme fidelity of the prose romancer to his poetic precursors in the Sigurðarkviða Fafnisbana; in passing on to the death of Sigurd, we perceive that the version in the Völsungasaga must be based upon a poem now entirely lost. Of the origin of the myth and its independent development in medieval Germany, this is not the place for discussion (see Nibelungenlied). Suffice to say that in no modernized or Germanized form does the legend attain such an exquisite colouring of heroic poetry as in these earliest fragments of Icelandic song. A very curious poem, in some MSS. attributed directly to Saemund, is the Song of the Sun, Sólarlióð, which forms a kind of appendix to the poetic Edda. In this the spirit of a dead father addresses his living son, and exhorts him, with maxims that resemble those of Hávamál, to righteousness of life. The tone of the poem is strangely confused between Christianity and Paganism, and it has been assumed to be the composition of a writer in the act of transition between the old creed and the new. It may, however, not impossibly, be altogether spurious as a poem of great antiquity, and may merely be the production of some Icelandic monk, anxious to imitate the Eddaic form and spirit. Finally Forspjallsljóð, or the Preamble, formerly known as the Song of Odin’s Raven, is an extremely obscure fragment, of which little is understood, although infinite scholarship has been expended on it. With this the poetic Edda closes.

The principal MS. of this Edda is the Codex Regius in the royal library at Copenhagen, written continuously, without regard to prose or verse, on 45 vellum leaves. This is that found by Bishop Brynjulf. Another valuable fragment exists in the Arne-Magnaean collection in the University of Copenhagen, consisting of four sheets, 22 leaves in all. These are the only MSS. older than the 17th century which contain a collection of the ancient mythico-heroic lays, but fragments occur in various other works, and especially in the Edda of Snorri. It is believed to have been written between 1260 and 1280. The poetic Edda was translated into English verse by Amos Cottle in 1797; the poet Gray produced a version of the Vegtamskviða; but the first good translation of the whole was that published by Benjamin Thorpe in 1866. An excellent edition of the Icelandic text has been prepared by Th. Möbius, but the standard of the original orthography will be found in the admirable edition of Sophus Bugge, Norroen Fornkvaeði, published at Christiania in 1867.

The Eddaic poems were rearranged, on a system of their own which differs entirely from that of the early MSS., by Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell, in their Corpus poeticum boreale (Oxford, 1883). This is a collection, not of Edda only but of all existing fragments of the vast lyrical literature of ancient Iceland. It supplies a prose translation.

(E. G.)

EDDIUS (Aeddi), a Kentish choirmaster, summoned by Wilfrid (c. 634-709), bishop of York, to help in organizing church services in Northumbria. He wrote the Life of his patron, and this biography of St Wilfrid is the earliest extant historical work compiled by an Anglo-Saxon author. He is a strong partisan and very credulous, but the Vita Wilfridi is nevertheless invaluable for the period it treats. Its date is little after the first decade of the 8th century, and it was used by Bede in compiling his Historia.

See Eddius, Vita Wilfridi (Raine, Historians of Church of York, London, 1879-1894), 14; Bede, Hist. Eccl. (Plummer, Oxford, 1896), iii. 2.

EDELINCK, GERARD (1649-1707), Flemish copper-plate engraver, was born at Antwerp. The rudiments of the art, which he was to carry to a higher pitch of excellence than it had previously reached, he acquired in his native town under the engraver Cornelisz Galle. But he was not long in reaching the limits of his master’s attainments; and then he went to Paris to improve himself under the teaching of De Poilly. This master likewise had soon done all he could to help him onwards, and Edelinck ultimately took the first rank among line engravers. His excellence was generally acknowledged; and having become known to Louis XIV. he was appointed, on the recommendation of Le Brun, teacher at the academy established at the Gobelins for the training of workers in tapestry. He was also entrusted with the execution of several important works. In 1677 he was admitted member of the Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The work of this great engraver constitutes an epoch in the art. His prints number more than four hundred.

Edelinck stands above and apart from his predecessors and contemporaries in that he excelled, not in some one respect, but in all respects,—that while one engraver attained excellence in correct form, and another in rendering light and shade, and others in giving colour to their prints and the texture of surfaces, he, as supreme master of the burin, possessed and displayed all these separate qualities, in so complete a harmony that the eye is not attracted by any one of them in particular, but rests in the satisfying whole. Edelinck was the first to break through the custom of making prints square, and to execute them in the lozenge shape. Among his most famous works are a “Holy Family,” after Raphael; a “Penitent Magdalene,” after Charles le Brun; “Alexander at the Tent of Darius,” after Le Brun; a “Combat of Four Knights,” after Leonardo da Vinci; “Christ surrounded with Angels”; “St Louis praying”; and “St Charles Borromeo before a crucifix,”—the last three after Le Brun. Edelinck was especially good as an engraver of portraits, and executed prints of many of the most eminent persons of his time. Among these are those of Le Brun, Rigaud, Philippe de Champagne (which the engraver thought his best), Santeuil, La Fontaine, Colbert, John Dryden, Descartes, &c. He died at Paris in 1707. His younger brother John, and his son Nicholas, were also engravers, but did not attain to his excellence.

EDELWEISS, known botanically as Leontopodium alpinum, a member of the family Compositae, a native of the Alps of Central Europe. It is a small herb reaching about 6 in. high, with narrow white woolly leaves, and terminal flower-heads enveloped in woolly bracts. The woolly covering enables the plant to thrive in the exposed situations in which it is found, by protecting it from cold and from drying up through excessive loss of moisture. It is grown in Britain as a rock-plant.

EDEN, SIR ASHLEY (1831-1887), Anglo-Indian official and diplomatist, third son of Robert John Eden, third Lord Auckland and bishop of Bath and Wells, was born on the 13th of November 1831, and was educated at Rugby, Winchester and the East India Company’s college at Haileybury, entering the Indian civil service in 1852. In 1855 he gained distinction as assistant to the special commissioner for the suppression of the Santal rising, and in 1860 was appointed secretary to the Bengal government with an ex officio seat on the legislative council, a position he held for eleven years. In 1861 he negotiated, as political agent, a treaty with the raja of Sikkim. His success led to his being sent on a similar mission to Bhutan in 1863; but, being unaccompanied by any armed force, his demands were rejected and he was forced under circumstances of personal insult to come to an arrangement highly favourable to the Bhutias. The result was the repudiation of the treaty by the Indian government and the declaration of war against Bhutan. In 1871 Eden became the first civilian governor of British Burma, which post he held until his appointment in 1877 as lieutenant-governor of Bengal. In 1878 he was made a K.C.S.I., and in 1882 resigned the lieutenant-governorship and returned to England on his appointment to the council of the secretary of state for India, of which he remained a member till his death on the 8th of July 1887. The success of his administration of Bengal was attested by the statue erected in his honour at Calcutta after his retirement.

EDEN, the name of the region in which, according to the Hebrew paradise-tradition in its present form, God planted a garden (or park), wherein he put the man whom he had formed (Gen. ii. 8). Research into primitive beliefs, guided by the comparative method, leads to the view that the “garden” was originally a celestial locality (see Paradise), and we cannot therefore be surprised if, now that paradise has been brought down to earth, the geographical details given in the Bible are rather difficult to work into a consistent picture. The fantastic geography of the (Indian) Vishnu Purana and the (Iranian) Bundahish will, in this case, be a striking parallel.

Let us now take the details of Eden as they occur. In Gen. ii. 8 we read that the garden lay “in Eden eastward,” where “eastward” is generally taken to mean “in the east of the earth.” This, however, seems inconsistent with Isa. xiv. 13, where the “mountain of God,” which corresponds (see Ezek. xxviii. 13, 14 and the article Adam) to the “garden in Eden,” is said to have been “in the uttermost parts of the north” (so R.V.). The former statement (“eastward”) suits Babylonia, where Friedrich Delitzsch1 places Eden; the latter does not. We are further told (v. 10) that “a river went out from Eden to water the garden,” and that “from thence it parted itself (?), and became four heads (?),” which is commonly understood to mean that the river was so large that, soon after leaving the garden (“from thence” is all that the text says), it could still supply four considerable streams (the text says, not “streams,” but “heads,” i.e. perhaps “beginnings” or “starting-points”). In vv. 11-14 the names of four rivers are given, but in spite of the descriptive supplements attached to three of them, only that one which has no supplement can be identified with much probability. In fact, Pĕrāth may without any obvious difficulty be “Euphrates,” except in Jer. xiii., where a more southerly stream seems indicated, but to the identification of “Hiddekel” with “Tigris” (Babylonian Diglat) the presence of the initial Hi in the Hebrew is an objection. Now as to “Pishon” and “Gihon.” If a moderately early tradition may be trusted, the “Gihon” is another name for the “Shihor,” which was either in or beside “Mizraim” (= Egypt) or Mizrim (= the North Arabian Muṣri), and indeed according to most scholars means the Nile in Jer. ii. 18, where the Septuagint substitutes for it Gēōn, i.e. Gihon. For “Pishon” few plausible suggestions have been made; it is not, however, a hopeless problem from the point of view which recognizes Eden in Arabia.

For details of the interesting descriptive supplements of the names Pishon, Giḥon, and Ḥiddeḳel, on which there is much difference of opinion, it must suffice to refer to the Encyclopaedia Biblica and Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible. We must, however, mention a widely held explanation of the name Eden. Plausible as it is to interpret this name as “delight”—indeed, the Septuagint translates in Gen. iii. 23 f. ὁ παράδεισος τῆς τρυφῆς—this cannot have been the original meaning. Hence Delitzsch (Wo lag das Paradies? p. 79) suggested that “Eden” might be a Hebraized form of the Babylonian ēdinu, “field, plain, desert.” But whereas Delitzsch takes “Eden” to be the entire plain of Babylonia, Hommel thinks that it is rather the plain about the sacred city of Eridu. It is the latter scholar to whom the “Arabian theory” of Paradise in its best-known form is due. The rivers (apart from Pĕrāth, “Euphrates”) he locates in northern and central Arabia, the “Cush” and “Asshur” of Genesis being, according to him, central Arabia and Edom respectively (Ancient Hebrew Traditions, pp. 314-316; Aufsätze u. Abhandlungen, iii. 281-284, 335-339). These rivers, in short, become Arabian wadis, on which see Hast. D.B. i. 132a (foot). Cheyne, on the other hand, rejects the Babylonian explanation of Eden as = “field, plain,” on the ground that “Eden” was originally regarded as a mountainous tract.

See further Driver, Book of Genesis (1904), pp. 57-60; Ency. Bib. “Paradise”; and the commentaries of Gunkel (2nd ed., 1902), and Cheyne (1907).

(T. K. C.)

1 Wo lag das Paradies? p. 66. A Sumerian name of Babylon was Tin-ter, “dwelling of life.” Cf. Bābīlu, Bābīli, “gate of God.”

EDENBRIDGE, a market town in the south-western parliamentary division of Kent, England, 26 m. S.S.E. of London, on the South-Eastern & Chatham, and the London, Brighton & South Coast railways. Pop. (1901) 2546. It is pleasantly situated on the river Eden, an affluent of the Medway, in a valley between the Ragstone Hills and the Forest Ridges. The church of St Peter and St Paul is principally Perpendicular. The town, which has considerable agricultural trade, possesses a chalybeate spring, but this is little used. Two miles from the town is Hever Castle, a beautiful moated mansion dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, but occupying the site of an earlier structure. This was rebuilt by Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, whose grandson, Sir Thomas, was father of Anne, second wife of Henry VIII., who here spent much of her life before her marriage, and was visited several times by the king. There is a chapel of her family in the fine parish church of Hever. Not far distant is the modern Chiddingstone Castle, on an ancient site. A block of sandstone in the park is called the “chiding stone,” tradition asserting it to be a prehistoric seat of judgment.

EDEN HALL, LUCK OF, an old painted drinking goblet preserved at Eden Hall, Cumberland, the seat of the Musgrave family. It is of enamelled or painted glass and is believed to date from the 10th century. It is of fair size and has the letters I.H.S. on the top. Round the vase is the famous verse given below. A legend involving the fortunes of the Musgraves attaches to this cup. In the grounds of Eden Hall is a spring called St Cuthbert’s Well, and the story is that one of the earliest of the Musgraves surprised the fairies feasting and making merry round the well. He snatched at the goblet from which the Fairy King was drinking and made off with it. The fairies pursued him to his castle, but failed to catch him. The Fairy King acknowledged his defeat and gave the cup as a prize to Musgrave, but warned him that the gift carried with it a condition:—

“When this cup shall break or fall.

Farewell the luck of Eden Hall.”

There are variants of this legend, but substantially they agree. Possessed of the lucky cup the knight of Musgrave is said to have at once prospered in a love-suit which had till then gone against him. There is a curious poem on the cup called “The Drinking Match at Eden Hall,” by Philip, duke of Wharton, a parody on the ballad of Chevy Chase. This is reprinted in full in Edward Walford’s Tales of Great Families (1877, vol. 11), under the heading, “The witty Duke of Wharton.” In Longfellow’s famous poem the goblet is represented as having been broken.

EDENKOBEN, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, 6 m. N. from Landau, on the railway to Weissenburg. Pop. 5300. It has a Roman Catholic and a Protestant church, several high-grade schools and a sulphur-spring. Its industries comprise linen- and damask-weaving, ironworks, and the manufacture of machinery, furniture and cigars. It has also a considerable trade in wine.

EDENTATA, the name assigned by Cuvier to an order of placental mammals apparently typified by the South American anteater, but likewise including the sloths and armadillos of the same country, and the Old World aard-varks and pangolins. Only the anteaters and pangolins are absolutely without teeth (Lat. e, out, dens, tooth), and the name is strictly applicable only to those two groups; but in all the existing representatives of the order teeth are absent from the front of the jaws, while the cheek-teeth are devoid of roots and of enamel, and only very exceptionally have deciduous predecessors. Practically this is all the definition that can be given to the assemblage, which is possibly an artificial one. It may be mentioned, however, that there is not unfrequently a separate coracoid bone.

Edentates may be divided into three distinct sections or suborders, firstly the Xenarthra, or Edentata Vera, of America, secondly the Tubulidenta, represented by the African aard-varks, and thirdly the Pholidota, which includes only the pangolins common to Africa and Asia. The Xenarthra are essentially a South and Central American group, some of the members of which have effected an entrance into North America. The three families by which they are now represented are widely sundered, both as regards habits and structure; but two of them—the sloths and the anteaters—are intimately connected by means of the extinct ground-sloths. As regards the presumed relationship of the Old World to the New World types, it is noteworthy that in the early Tertiary deposits of France and Germany are found certain fossil remains apparently referable to armadillos, aard-varks and pangolins, some of the armadillos coming very close to South American forms. This assemblage of three groups of edentates in the countries fringing northern Africa is suggestive that the latter continent may have been the original home of the group, which reached South America by means of a direct land connexion.

Xenarthra.—The typical American edentates, or Xenarthra, are characterized by the circumstance that the last dorsal and all the lumbar vertebrae carry additional articular facets, or abnormal articulations (xenarthral). Teeth may be absent or present, and when developed either all similar (homaeodont) or to some extent differentiated. The bodily covering may take the form either of coarse hairs, or of bony plates, with a larger or smaller intermixture of hairs.

Fig. 1.

—Skull of Unau or Two-toed Sloth (

Choloepus didactylus

).

Of the three existing families of this group, the first is that of the Bradypodidae, or sloths, characterized by the presence of five pairs of upper and four of lower teeth, the normally-formed tongue and the rudimentary tail. The species are arboreal and feed on leaves; all being confined to the forests of tropical America. Externally sloths are clothed with long coarse, crisp hair; the head is short and rounded, and the external ears inconspicuous. The teeth are subcylindrical, of persistent growth, consisting of a central axis of vasodentine, with a thin investment of hard dentine, and a thick outer coating of cement; without any succession. Fore-limbs greatly longer than the hind-limbs; the extremities terminating in narrow, curved feet; with the digits never exceeding three in number, and encased for nearly their whole length in a common integument, and armed with long, strong claws. Stomach complex. No caecum. Placenta deciduate and dome-like, composed of an aggregation of numerous discoidal lobes.

A remarkable feature connected with sloths is the development of a green colour in their hair, due to the growth of an alga. According to Dr W.G. Ridewood, in the three-toed sloth the hair is invested with a thick extra-cortical layer. “The hair has a tendency to crack in a transverse direction, and in the cracks there come to lodge unicellular algae, to which Kühn has given the name Pleurococcus bradypi. The moisture of the climate in which Bradypus lives enables the alga to live and propagate in this curious position, and the sloth acquires a general green tint which must render it very difficult to distinguish as it hangs among the green foliage.” In the two-toed sloth, on the other hand, the bulk of the hair is composed of an outer coat, or cortex, which is longitudinally fluted or grooved, the grooves being filled with strands of extra-cortex in which flourishes an alga (Pleurococcus choloepi) distinct from the one infesting the hairs of the three-toed species. Of quite a different type are the hairs of the extinct ground-sloths (see Mylodon), which are smooth and solid, Dr Ridewood rejecting the idea that they were originally coated with a cortex that has disappeared.

The typical genus Bradypus is represented by the various species of ai, or three-toed sloth, in which none of the teeth project greatly beyond the others; the first in the upper jaw is much smaller than any of the others, while the first in the lower jaw is broad and compressed, and the grinding surfaces of all are much cupped. Vertebrae: C 9, D and L 20 (of which 15 to 17 bear ribs), S 6, Ca 11. All the species present the peculiarity of possessing nine cervical vertebrae; but the ninth, and sometimes the eighth, bears a pair of short movable ribs. The fore-limbs are considerably longer than the hind-legs, and the bones of the fore-arm are complete, free and capable of pronation and supination. The fore-feet are long, very narrow, habitually curved and terminate in three pointed curved claws, in close apposition to each other; they are, in fact, incapable of being divaricated, so that the foot is reduced to the condition of a triple hook, fit only for the function of suspension from the boughs of trees. The hind-foot closely resembles the fore-foot in general structure and mode of use, and has the sole habitually turned inwards so that it cannot be applied to the ground in walking. The tongue is short and soft, and the stomach large and complex, bearing some resemblance to that of ruminants. The windpipe or trachea has the remarkable peculiarity—not unfrequent among birds and reptiles—of being folded on itself before it reaches the lungs. The two teats are pectoral in position. The premaxilla is rudimentary and loosely attached to the maxilla. Except in B. torquatus, there is no perforation in the lower end of the humerus. Some of the species are covered uniformly with a grey or greyish-brown coat; others have a dark collar of elongated hairs around the shoulders (B. torquatus); some have the hair of the face shorter than that of the rest of the head and neck; and others have a remarkable-looking patch of soft, short hair on the back between the shoulders, consisting, when best marked, of a median stripe of glossy black, bordered on each side by bright orange, yellow or white. There are also structural differences in the skulls, as in the amount of inflation of the pterygoid bones. The habits of all are apparently alike. They are natives of Guiana, Brazil and Peru, and two species (B. infuscatus and B. castaneiceps) extend north of the Isthmus of Panama as far as Nicaragua. Of the former of these a specimen in captivity uttered a shrill sound like a monkey when forcibly pulled away from the tree to which it was holding.

In the species of unau, or two-toed sloths, Choloepus, the front tooth in both jaws is separated by an interval from the others, and is large and caniniform, wearing to a sharp bevelled edge against the opposing tooth, the upper shutting in front of the lower when the mouth is closed, unlike true canines. Vertebrae: C 6 or 7, D 23-24, L 3, S 7-8, Ca 4-6. One species (C. didactylus) has the ordinary number of vertebrae in the neck; but an otherwise closely allied form (C. hoffmanni) has but six. The tail is very rudimentary. The fore-feet generally resemble those of Bradypus, but there are only two functional digits, with claws; these answering to the second and third of the typical five-toed limb. The structure of the hind-limb generally resembles that of Bradypus, the appellation “two-toed” referring only to the anterior limb, for in the foot the three middle toes are functionally developed and of nearly equal size. The premaxilla is well developed, and firmly attached to the maxilla; and there is always a perforation, or foramen, on the inner side of the lower end of the humerus. C. didactylus, which has been longest known, and is commonly called by the native name of unau, inhabits the forests of Brazil. C. hoffmanni has a more northern geographical range, extending from Ecuador through Panama to Costa Rica. Its voice, which is seldom heard, is like the bleat of a sheep, and if the animal is seized it snorts violently. Both species are very variable in external coloration (see Sloth).

The second family is that of the anteaters, Myrmecophagidae, distinguished from the last by the absence of teeth, the elongated tongue and the long tail. The long and slender head has a tubular mouth, with a small terminal aperture through which the worm-like tongue, covered with the sticky secretion of the enormous submaxillary salivary glands, is rapidly protruded in feeding, and withdrawn again with the adhering particles of food which are then sucked into the gullet. In the foot the third toe is greatly developed, and has a long sickle-like claw; the others are reduced or suppressed. The hind-foot has four or five subequal digits with claws. The long tail is sometimes prehensile. Placenta dome-like or discoidal. Externally the body is covered with hair. Anteaters feed exclusively on animal substances, mostly insects. One species is terrestrial, the others arboreal; none burrow in the ground. They are all inhabitants of tropical America. In the typical genus Myrmecophaga the skull is remarkably elongated and narrow, with its upper surface smooth and cylindriform. Anteriorly the face is produced into a long tubular rostrum, rounded above and flattened below, with terminal nostrils, and composed of the mesethmoid (ossified for more than half its length), the vomer, the maxillae, and the long and narrow nasal bones, the premaxillae being extremely short and confined to the margin of the nostrils. The zygomatic arch is incomplete, the rod-like jugal only articulating with the maxilla in front, and not reaching the short zygomatic process of the squamosal. The lachrymal foramen is in front of the margin of the orbit. There are no post-orbital processes to the frontals or any other demarcation between the orbits and the temporal fossae. Palate extremely elongated, and produced backwards as far as the level of the external auditory meatus by the meeting in the middle line of the largely developed pterygoids. The glenoid fossa for the lower jaw, a shallow oval facet, with its long diameter from before backwards. Lower jaw long and slender, with an exceedingly short symphysis, no distinct coronoid process, and a slightly elevated, elongated, flattened, condylar articular surface. Vertebrae: C 7, D 15-16, L 3-2, S 6, Ca 31. Clavicles rudimentary. In the fore-foot the first digit is very slender, the second also slender, with compressed phalanges of nearly equal length, but the third is immensely developed, though its first phalanx is extremely short, while the terminal one is so long that the entire length of the digit exceeds that of the second. The fourth has a long and rather slender metacarpal, and three phalanges diminishing in size, the terminal phalange being very small. The fifth has the metacarpal nearly as long, but not so stout as the fourth, and followed by two small phalanges, the last rudimentary and conical. Claws are developed upon all but the fifth. In walking the toes are kept bent, with their points turned upwards and inwards, the weight being supported on a pad over the end of the fifth digit, and the upper surfaces of the third and fourth digits. The hind feet are short and rather broad, with five subequal claws, the fourth rather longest, the first shortest; the whole sole is placed on the ground in walking. Body rather compressed, clothed with long, coarse hair. Tail about as long as the body, and covered with very long hair; not prehensile. Ears small, oval, erect. Eyes very small. Stomach consisting of a sub-globular, thin-walled, cardiac portion, and a muscular pyloric gizzard with dense epithelial lining. No ileocolic valve; but a short, wide, ill-defined caecum. The two teats are pectoral.

The tamandua anteaters (Tamandua, or Uroleptes), of which several species (or races) are now recognized, are smaller animals than the last, in which the head is much less elongated, the fur short and bristly, and the tail, tapering, prehensile, with the under side throughout, and the whole of the terminal portion naked and scaly. The stomach is similar to that of Myrmecophaga, but with the muscular pyloric gizzard less strongly developed. There is a distinct ileocolic valve and short globular caecum. The fore-foot has a very large claw on the third toe, moderate-sized claws on the second and fourth, a minute one on the first, and none on the fifth, which is entirely concealed within the skin. The hind-foot has five subequal claws. Vertebrae: C 7, D 17, L 2, S 5, Ca 37. There are very rudimentary clavicles.

Fig. 2.

—Tamandua Anteater (

Tamandua tetradactyla

).

The last representative of the family is the tiny golden-haired pigmy or two-toed anteater, Cyclopes (or Cycloturus) didactylus, in which the skull is much shorter even than in the preceding genus, and arched considerably in the longitudinal direction. It differs from that of the other members of the family mainly in the long canal for the posterior nostrils not being closed by bone below, as the greater part of the palatines and the pterygoids do not meet in the middle line. The lower jaw has a prominent, narrow, recurved coronoid, and a well-developed angular process, and is strongly decurved in front. Vertebrae: C 7, D 16, L 2, S 4, Ca 40. Ribs remarkably broad and flat. Clavicles well developed. Fore-foot remarkably modified, having the third digit greatly developed at the expense of all the others; it has a short stout metacarpal and but two phalanges, of which the terminal one is large, compressed, pointed and much curved, with a strong hook-like claw. The second digit has the same number of phalanges, and bears a claw, but is much more slender than the third. The fourth is represented only by the metacarpal, and one nailless phalange, the first and fifth only by rudimentary metacarpals. The hind-foot is also modified into a climbing organ, the first toe being rudimentary and consisting of a metatarsal and one phalange concealed beneath the skin, but the other four toes subequal and much curved, with long, pointed, compressed claws. The tuberosity of the heel-bone or calcaneum is directed towards the sole, and parallel with it and extending to about double its length is a greatly elongated sesamoid ossicle. These together support a prominent cushion to which the nails are opposed in climbing. Stomach pyriform, with muscular walls, but no distinct gizzard-like portion. The commencement of the colon provided with two small caeca, narrow at the base, but rather dilated at their terminal blind ends, and communicating with the general cavity by very minute apertures. Tail longer than the body, tapering, bare on the under surface and prehensile. Fur soft and silky.

The third and last existing family of the Xenarthra is that of the armadillos, or Dasypodidae, in which there are at least seven pairs of teeth in each jaw, while the tongue is normal, the tail generally long, and the body covered with an armour of bony plates overlain by horny scales. All the species are terrestrial, and insectivorous or more or less omnivorous.

The union of the numerous polygonal bony shields on the back and sides forms a hard shield, usually consisting of an anterior (scapular) and posterior (pelvic) solid portion (which overhang on each side the parts of the body they respectively cover, forming chambers into which the limbs are withdrawn), and a variable number of rings between, connected by soft flexible skin so as to allow of curvature of the body. The top of the head has also a similar shield, and the tail is usually encased in bony rings or plates. The outer or exposed surfaces of the limbs are protected by irregular bony plates, not united at their margins; but the skin of the inner surface of the limbs and under side of the body is soft and more or less clothed with hair. Hairs also in many species project through apertures between the bony plates of the back. The bony plates are covered by a layer of horny epidermis. Teeth numerous, simple, of persistent growth and usually without milk predecessors. Zygomatic arch of skull complete. Cervical vertebrae with extremely short, broad and depressed bodies; the first free, but the second and third, and often several of the others united together both by their bodies and arches. Clavicles well developed. A third trochanter on the femur. Tibia and fibula united at their lower extremities. Fore-feet with strongly developed, curved claws, adapted for digging and scratching, three, four or five in number. Hind-feet plantigrade, with five toes, all provided with nails. Tongue long, pointed and extensile, though to a less degree than in the anteaters. Submaxillary glands largely developed. Stomach simple. Placenta discoidal and deciduate.

The typical genus Dasypus, with several others, represents the subfamily Dasypodinae, which usually have all five toes developed and with nails, though the first and fifth may be suppressed. The first and second are long and slender, with the normal number and relative length of phalanges, the others stout, with short broad metacarpals, and the phalanges reduced in length and generally in number by coalescence; the terminal phalange of the third being large, that of the others gradually diminishing to the fifth. Dasypus has the most normal form of fore-foot, but the modifications developed in all the others (culminating in Tolypeutes) are foreshadowed. Ears wide apart. Teats, one pair, pectoral. In Dasypus the teeth are 9⁄10 or 8⁄9, of which the first in the upper jaw is usually implanted in the premaxillary bone. The series extends posteriorly some distance behind the anterior root of the zygoma, almost level with the hind edge of the palate. The teeth are large, subcylindrical, slightly compressed, diminishing in size towards each end of the series; the anterior two in the lower jaw smaller and more compressed than the others. Cranial portion of the skull broad and depressed, facial portion triangular, broad in front and depressed. Auditory bulla completely ossified, perforated on the inner side by the carotid canal, and continued externally into an elongated bony meatus auditorius, with its aperture directed upwards and backwards. (In all the other genera of Dasypodinae the tympanic bone is a mere half-ring, loosely attached to the cranium.) Lower jaw with a high ascending branch, broad transversely placed condyle, and high slender coronoid process. Vertebrae: C 7, D 11-12, L 3, S 8, Ca 17-18. Head broad and flat above, with the muzzle obtusely pointed. Ears of moderate size or rather small, placed laterally far apart. Body broad and depressed. Armour with six or seven movable bands between the scapular and pelvic shields. Tail shorter than the body, tapering, covered with plates forming distinct rings near the base. Fore-feet with five toes; the first much more slender than the others, and with a smaller ungual phalange and nail; the second, though the longest, also slender. The third, fourth and fifth gradually diminishing in length, all armed with strong, slightly curved compressed claws, sloping from an elevated, rounded inner border to a sharp, outer and inferior edge. The hind-foot is rather short, and has all five toes armed with stout, compressed, slightly curved, obtusely pointed claws—the third the longest, the second nearly equal to it, the fourth the next, the first and fifth shorter and nearly equal.

To this genus belongs one of the best-known species of the group, the six-banded armadillo or encoubert (D. sexcinctus) of Brazil and Paraguay; a very similar species, D. villosus, the hairy armadillo, replacing it south of the Rio Plata. There are also two small species, D. vellerosus and D. minutus, from the Argentine Republic and North Patagonia; the latter, which differs from the other three in having no tooth implanted in the premaxillary bone and is often referred to a genus apart, as Zäedius.

In Tatoua (Cabassous or Lysiurus) the teeth are 9⁄9 or 8⁄8, of moderate size and subcylindrical: the most posterior placed a little way behind the anterior root of the zygoma, but far from the hinder margin of the palate. Skull somewhat elongated, much constricted behind the orbits, and immediately in front of the constriction considerably dilated. Lower jaw slender, with the coronoid process small and sharp pointed, sometimes obsolete. Vertebrae: C 7, D 12-13, L 5, S 10, Ca 18. Head broad behind. Ears rather large and rounded, wide apart. Movable bands of armour 12-13. Tail considerably shorter than the body, and slender, covered with nearly naked skin, with a few small, scattered, bony plates, chiefly on the under surface and near the apex. On the fore-feet the first and second toes are long and slender, with small claws and the normal number of phalanges. The other toes have but two phalanges; the third has an immense sickle-like claw; the fourth and fifth similar but smaller claws. The hind-feet are comparatively small, with five toes, and small, triangular, blunt nails; the third longest, the first shortest. The best-known species of this genus, the tatouay or cabassou, T. unicinctus, is, after Priodon gigas, the largest of the group. It is found, though not abundantly, in Surinam, Brazil and Paraguay. Others, such as T. hispidus and T. lugubris, have been described.

In the giant armadillo (Priodon gigas) the teeth are variable in number, and generally differ on the two sides of each jaw, being usually from 20 to 25 on each side above and below, so that as many as a hundred may be present altogether; but as life advances the anterior teeth fall out, and all traces of their sockets disappear. The series extends as far back as the hinder edge of the anterior root of the zygoma. They are all very small, in the anterior half of each series strongly compressed, with flat sides and a straight free edge, but posteriorly more cylindrical, with flat, truncated, free surfaces. Vertebrae: C 7, D 12, L 3, S 10, Ca 23. Head small, elongated, conical. Ears moderate, ovate. Armour with 12-13 movable bands. Tail nearly equal to the body in length, gradually tapering, closely covered with quadrangular scales, arranged in a quincunx pattern. Fore-feet with five toes, formed on the same plan as those of Tatoua, but with the claw of the third of still greater size, and that of the others, especially the fifth, proportionally reduced. Hind-foot short and rounded, with five very short toes, and short, broad, flat obtuse nails. The giant armadillo is by far the largest existing member of the family, measuring rather more than 3 ft. from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, the tail being about 20 in. long. It inhabits the forest of Surinam and Brazil. The powerful claws of its fore-feet enable it to dig with great facility; and its food consists chiefly of termites and other insects, although it is said to attack and uproot newly-made graves for the purpose of devouring the flesh of the bodies contained in them.

The apar (Tolypeutes tricinctus) typifies a genus in which the teeth are 9⁄9 or 8⁄9, and are rather large in proportion to the size of the skull, with the hinder end of the series reaching nearly to the posterior margin of the palate. Vertebrae: C 7, D 11, L 3, S 12, Ca 13. Ears placed low on the sides of the head, rather large, broadly ovate. Armour with its scapular and pelvic shields very free at the sides of the body, forming large chambers into which the limbs can be readily withdrawn, and only three movable bands. Tail short, conical, covered with large bony tubercles. The fore-feet formed on the same type as in the last genus, but the peculiarities carried to a still greater extent. The claw of the third toe is very long, while those of the first and fifth are greatly reduced and sometimes wanting. On the hind-foot the three middle toes have broad, flat, subequal nails, forming together a kind of tripartite hoof; the first and fifth much shorter, with more compressed nails.

The armadillos of this genus have the power of rolling themselves up into a ball, the shield on the top of the head and the tuberculated dorsal surface of the tail exactly fitting into and filling up the apertures left by the notches at either end of the body-armour. This appears to be their usual means of defence when frightened or surprised, as they do not burrow like the other species. They run very quickly, with a very peculiar gait, only the tips of the claws of the fore-feet touching the ground. In addition to the apar, there are the Argentine and Bolivian T. conurus, and T. muriei from Argentina or Patagonia.

The last group of existing armadillos forms the genus Tatusia and the subfamily Tatusiinae; the subfamily rank being based on the fact that of the seven or eight pairs of small subcylindrical teeth, all but the last, which is considerably smaller than the rest, are preceded by milk-teeth not changed until the animal has nearly attained full size. Vertebrae: C 7, D 9-11, L 5, S 8, Ca 20-27. Head narrow, with a long, narrow, subcylindrical obliquely truncated snout. Ears rather large, ovate and erect, placed close together on the occiput. Armour with seven to nine distinct movable bands. Body generally elongated and narrow. Tail moderate, or long, gradually tapering; its plates forming distinct rings for the greater part of its length. Fore-feet with four visible toes, and a concealed clawless rudiment of the fifth; the claws long, slightly curved, and slender, the third and fourth subequal and alike, the first and fourth much shorter. Hind-feet with five toes, armed with strong, slightly curved, conical, obtusely pointed nails, and the third longest, then the second and fourth, and the first and fifth much shorter than the others. This genus differs from all the other armadillos in having a pair of inguinal teats in addition to the usual pectoral pair, and in producing a large number (4 to 10) of young at a birth, all the others having usually but one or two. The peba armadillo, T. septemcincta, is a well-known species, having an extensive range from Texas to Paraguay. It is replaced in the more southern regions of South America by a smaller species, with shorter tail, the mulita (T. hybrida) so called from the resemblance of its head and ears to those of a mule. T. kappleri is a large species from Guiana.

Finally we have the pichiciago, or fairy armadillo, Chlamydophorus truncatus, typifying the subfamily Chlamydophorinae. In most anatomical characters, especially the structure of the fore-foot, this group resembles the Dasypodinae, but it differs remarkably from all other known armadillos, living or extinct, in the peculiar modification of the armour.

The teeth, which number 8⁄8-9, are subcylindrical, somewhat compressed, moderate in size, and smaller at each end (especially in front) than at the middle of the series. Skull broad and rounded behind, pointed in front. Muzzle subcylindrical and depressed. A conspicuous rounded rough prominence on the frontal bone, just before each orbit. Tympanic prolonged into a tubular auditory meatus, curving upwards round the base of the zygoma. Vertebrae: C 7, D 11, L 3, S 10, Ca 15. Upper part of head and trunk covered with four-sided horny plates (with small thin ossifications beneath), forming a shield, free and overhanging the sides of the trunk, and attached only along the middle line of the back. The plates are arranged in a series of distinct transverse bands, about twenty in number between the occiput and the posterior truncated end, and not divided into solid scapular and pelvic shields with movable bands between. The hinder end of the body is abruptly truncated and covered by a vertically placed, strong, solid, bony shield, of an oval (transversely extended) form, covered by thin horny plates. This shield is firmly welded by five bony processes to the hinder part of the pelvis. Through a notch in the middle of its lower border the tail passes out. The latter is rather short, cylindrical in its proximal half, and expanded and depressed or spatulate in its terminal portion, and covered with horny plates. The dorsal surfaces of the fore and hind-feet are also covered with horny plates. The remainder of the limbs and under surface and sides of the body beneath the overlapping lateral parts of the back shield are clothed with rather long, soft silky hair. Eyes and ears very small, and concealed by the hair. Extremities short. Feet large, each with five well-developed claws, those on the fore-feet very long, stout and subcompressed, the structure of the digits being essentially the same as those of Tatoua and Priodon. Teats two, pectoral. Visceral anatomy closely resembling that of Dasypus, the caecum being broad, short and bifid. The pichiciago, a burrowing animal, about 5 in. long, inhabits the sandy plains of western Argentina, especially the vicinity of Mendoza. Its horny covering is pinkish, and its silky hair white. A second species, C. retusus, from Bolivia is rather larger and has the dorsal shield attached to the skin of the back as far as its edge, instead of only along the median line. (See Armadillo.)

Tubulidentata.—The second suborder of edentates, namely the Tubulidentata, is represented at the present day only by the aard-varks, or ant-bears, of Africa, constituting the family Orycteropodidae and the genus Orycteropus. Together with the following group, they differ from the Xenarthra in the absence of additional articular facets to the lumbar vertebrae; for which reason the term Nomarthra has been proposed for the Tubulidentata and Pholidota as collectively distinct from the Xenarthra. In the present group the external surface is scantily covered with bristle-like hairs. The teeth are numerous, and traversed by a number of parallel vertical pulp-canals. Femur with a third trochanter. Fore-feet without the first toe, but all the other digits well developed, with strong moderate-sized nails, suited to digging, the plantar surfaces of which rest on the ground in walking. Hind-feet with five subequal toes. Placenta broadly zonular. The brain is very like that of the Ungulata; and there are two pairs of teats, one abdominal, and the other inguinal. Aard-varks feed on animal substances; and are terrestrial and fossorial in habits. The total number of teeth is from eight to ten in each side of the upper, and eight in the lower jaw; but they are never all in place at one time, as the small anterior ones are shed before the series is completed behind. In the adult they number usually five on each side above and below, of which the first two are simple and compressed, the next two larger and longitudinally grooved at the sides, the most posterior simple and cylindrical. Their summits are rounded before they are worn; their bases do not taper to a root, but are evenly truncated and continually growing. Each tooth is made up of an aggregation of parallel dental systems, having a slender pulp cavity in the centre, from which the dentinal tubes radiate outwards, and being closely packed together each system assumes a polygonal outline as seen in transverse section. A series of milk-teeth is developed. Skull moderately elongated with the facial portion subcylindrical and slightly tapering, and the zygoma complete and slender. The palate ends posteriorly in the thickened transverse border of the palatines, and is not continued back by the pterygoids. The tympanic is annular, and not welded to the surrounding bones. The lower jaw is slender anteriorly, but rises high posteriorly, with a slender recurved coronoid, and an ascending pointed process on the hinder edge below the condyle, which is small, oval, and looks forward as much as upwards. Vertebrae: C 7, D 13, L 8, S 6, Ca 25. The large number of lumbar vertebrae is peculiar among Edentates. The tongue is less worm-like than in Myrmecophaga, being thick and fleshy at the base and gradually tapering to the apex. The salivary apparatus is developed much in the same manner as in that genus, but the duct of the submaxillary gland has no reservoir. The stomach consists of a large subglobular cardaic portion, with a thick, soft, and corrugated lining membrane, and a smaller muscular, pyloric part, with a comparatively thin and smooth lining. There is a distinct ileocaecal valve and a considerable sized caecum; also a gall-bladder. Head elongated, with a tubular snout, terminal nostrils and small mouth-opening. Ears large, pointed, erect. Tall nearly as long as the body, cylindrical, thick at the base, tapering to the extremity.

According to the researches of Dr E. Lönnberg, the teeth of the aard-varks correspond only to the roots of those of other mammals, the crowns being unrepresented, except to a very small degree when the teeth first cut the gum. This explanation renders the peculiar internal structure of these teeth much less difficult to understand than if they represented both crown and root. In Dr Lönnberg’s opinion, the teeth indicate the descent of the aard-vark from an ungulate stock,—a view in harmony with the evidence of the brain. If this idea prove well founded, and if the aard-varks are rightly classed with the Edentata, the whole order must apparently be regarded as an offshoot from primitive Ungulata. The fact of the frequent distinctness of the coracoid bone requires, however, explanation in connexion with such a descent (see Aard-Vark).

Pholidota.—The Pholidota, constituting the third and last group of the Edentata, are represented by the pangolins, or scaly anteaters, of Asia and Africa, all of which are included in the family Manidae and the genus Manis. Pangolins differ from all other mammals by the armour of overlapping horny scales (often with hairs growing between them) which invests the whole animal, with the exception of the under surface of the body, and sometimes a small patch near the tip of the under side of the tail. There are no teeth; and although the tongue is long and worm-like, it is not extensile. The scaphoid and lunar bones of the carpus are united. The uterus is bicornuate, and the placenta diffused and non-deciduate. The skull has somewhat the form of an elongated cone, with the small end turned forwards, and is smooth and free from crests and ridges. No distinction between the orbits and temporal fossae. The zygomatic arch usually incomplete, owing to the absence of the jugal bone; no distinct lacrymal bone; and the palate long and narrow. The pterygoids extend backwards as far as the tympanics, but do not meet in the middle line below. Tympanic welded to the surrounding bones, and more or less bladder-like, but not produced into a tubular auditory meatus. Two halves of lower jaw very slender and straight, without any angle or coronoid process, on the anterior extremity of the upper edge a sharp, conical, tooth-like process projecting upwards and outwards. No clavicles. No third trochanter to the femur. Terminal phalanges cleft at the tip. Caudal vertebrae with very long transverse processes and numerous chevron-bones. Stomach with thick muscular walls and lining membrane, and a special gland near the middle of the great curvature, consisting of a mass of complex secreting follicles, the ducts of which terminate in a common orifice. No caecum, but a gall-bladder. Head small, depressed, narrow, and pointed in front, with a very small mouth-opening. Eyes and ears very small. Body elongated, narrow. Tail more or less elongated, convex above, flat underneath. Limbs short, and in walking the surface and outer sides of the phalanges of the two outer digits of the front feet alone rest on the ground, with the points of the nails turning upwards and inwards. The third toe the longest, with a powerful compressed curved claw, the second and fourth with similar but smaller claws, but that of the first toe often almost rudimentary. Hind-feet plantigrade with the first toe very short, and the four other toes subequal, and carrying moderate, curved, compressed nails. Pangolins are of small or moderate size, terrestrial and burrowing, and feed mainly on termites or white ants; some of the species being more or less arboreal. They can roll themselves up in a ball when in danger. Their peculiar elongated form, short limbs, long tapering tail, and scaly covering give them on a superficial inspection more the appearance of reptiles than of mammals. The species are not numerous and may be divided into two sections, one comprising the Asiatic species, such as M. javanica, M. aurita of China, and the Indian M. pentadactyla, and the other the African, as represented by the large M. gigantea, M. temminchi, the long-tailed M. macrura, and the small arboreal M. tricuspis. In the Asiatic group the middle series of scales continues to the tip of the tail; but in the African forms this row splits into two a few inches from the tail-tip. The latter have also no hairs between the scales and no external ears. The climbing species have a small bare patch on the under side of the tail near the tip (see Pangolin).

Extinct Edentates.

Beyond remains of species closely allied to or identical with the existing forms, the sloths and anteaters appear to be unknown in a fossil state. On the other hand the extinct family of ground sloths, or Megatheriidae, which includes the largest of all edentates, is an exceedingly large one, and extends in South America from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, and was also represented during the latter epoch in North America. It serves to connect the Bradypodidae with Myrmecophagidae. The alleged occurrence of an allied form in Madagascar is somewhat doubtful (see Megatherium and Mylodon).

Of Dasypodidae numerous representatives occur in the South American Tertiaries. From the higher beds many of the species are referable to existing genera, such as Dasypus and Tatusia, although some are much larger than any living forms, the skull in one case being nearly a foot in length. In other instances, when lower formations are reached, the genera are also distinct, Eutatus having the whole armour divided into movable bands, and the allied Stegotherium representing the group in the Santa Cruz formation of Patagonia. Even in the Argentine Pleistocene there is an extinct genus, Chlamydotherium, represented by a species of the size of a rhinoceros, with grooved teeth approximating to those of the glyptodonts. The latter represent a family (Glyptodontidae) by themselves, and typically may be described as giant solid-shelled armadillos, although some of their smaller Santa Cruz representatives (Propalaeohoplophorus) approximate in some degree to true armadillos (see Glyptodon).

A very remarkable Santa Cruz armadillo, Peltephilus, has an altogether peculiar type of head-shield, developed into horns in front of the eyes; and, what is still more noteworthy, teeth in the front of the jaws, thereby rendering the ordinary definition of the order Edentata incorrect. It has been made the type of a distinct family, Peltephilidae.

The past history of the armadillo group does not, however, by any means end here. True armadillos, it should be observed, are known in North America as far north as Texas, from the Pleistocene onwards; but in formations of middle Tertiary age are unrepresented. Recent discoveries apparently indicate, however, the occurrence of armadillos of a primitive type in the lower Tertiary or Eocene formations of Wyoming. The first evidence of these Eocene armadillos was afforded by portions of the jaws, which, together with a leg-bone of a totally different animal, were believed to indicate creatures nearly allied to the aye-aye (Chiromys) of Madagascar, and for which the name Metachiromys was consequently proposed. According to modern usage, this name, in spite of its inappropriate nature, is retained for the armadillos, although in the writer’s opinion it ought to be replaced. According to Professor H.F. Osborn, by whom their remains have been described, the North American fossil armadillos were closely related to the existing members of the group, from which they differ chiefly by the armour, or shield, having probably been formed of tough leathery skin instead of bony plates, by the presence of a single pair of large enamel-capped tusk-like teeth in each jaw, and by the degeneration of the other teeth. If these determinations are trustworthy, the question arises whether we should regard the armadillos of South America as the descendants of North American forms which migrated southwards before that separation of the two continents was established, which lasted for a large portion of the Tertiary period, or whether a migration took place at the same early epoch in the opposite direction.

More interesting still is the occurrence of remains of reputed armadillos (Necrodasypus) from the Oligocene of France and Germany. In the opinion of Dr F. Ameghino these Oligocene armadillos, which had bony shields on both the head and body, were near akin to some of the modern South American forms.

Passing on to the aard-varks (Orycteropodidae), we find these represented by a species closely allied to the existing ones in the Lower Pliocene formations of Spain, France, Hungary, Samos and Asia Minor. A single tibia from the French Oligocene is identified by Dr Ameghino with the present family, and the genus Archaeorycteropus established for its reception; this genus, in its founder’s opinion, being also represented in the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia. As regards the pangolins, the only fossils referred to this group (apart from a few discovered in a cave in India) appear to be certain limb-bones from the Oligocene of France and Germany, for which the names Necromanis and Teutomanis have been proposed. The occurrence of the characteristic cleft terminal toe-bones among these remains seems to leave little doubt as to the correctness of the determination.

The alleged occurrence of remains of giant pangolins in the upper Tertiary of Europe is due to misidentification (see Ancylopoda). By some authorities the Eocene group of Ganodonta has been affiliated to the Edentata, but this reference is not accepted by Prof. W.B. Scott.