Wherein "Nordics" Excel

By JOEL N. ENO, A. M., BROOKLYN, N. Y.

HE term "race," strictly speaking, implies a group having a common ancestry, and blood relationship. It does not depend upon the superficial matter of complexion, nor upon artificial names of governmental territories. The so-called German territory east of the Elbe, is, with the exception of Mecklenburg, merely colonized within the modern era, among non-Germans.

The scientific method of research is to collect facts, either by personal observation or from the records of personal observations of others, and only then to determine by the weight of the facts which points to a certain common underlying cause, the principle or law which explains best the most of the essential facts. The main body of recent scientists decide against Lamarck's theory that characteristics acquired during the lifetime of the subject, are transmitted to progeny, provided actual instances of such transmission are not produced, which they have not been hitherto. Universal observation establishes the fact that in identically the same climate and soil, the vegetable world, which is directly affected by both, heredity is stronger than both, and the beech continues a beech, and the maple by its side a maple, with no cross-fertilization of offspring. In the same Egypt lived the ancient founders of a mighty civilization, and the dull fellahin; and in corresponding south latitude and climate in the same Africa, the Bushmen, nearly the lowest type of men in intelligence and mode of life; and a parallel case is found between the whites and the aborigines of Australia. No stockbreeder expects to improve the chief and most valuable quality of his stock by breeding it with a scrub; or in other words, to breed upward by breeding downward. If indiscriminate mixing of races tended to improvement, Sicilians ought to be excellent. Upon a ground of aborigines, a layer of Sicilians, and successively Carthaginians, and Roman prisoners of war from the Oriental conquests; but the psychological effect is universal distrust and secretive conspiracies, the settling of private quarrels by assassination, and the

use of intimidation by the branches of the great secret society, the Maffia, which honeycomb society over most of the island, to prevent the punishment of crime perpetrated by its members. Murder and robbery were perhaps not more common than among the much mixed multitude of New York city, in recent years. Most of the steps of the world's advance from savagery to present civilization, comfort, and enlightenment, have been initiated by individuals; but breed-relationship is, in the main, associated with psychological or mental breed-characteristics. Sir Francis Galton has shown by a large number of known instances, that genius or special mental ability runs in certain families; and recent criminologists have traced the breed-tendency to vice in the so-called "Jukes family" and the "Kallikak family." The genius of insight and creative thought, which is the divine fire in art, literature, and philosophy, was surpassing, almost unique, in the Ionic Greek group. Let us study the genius of application and continuity of thought in the field of general practical utilities which mark modern life. In a survey of inventions involving applied mechanics and physics, the two most prominent facts are: first, that almost all fall within the last two hundred years: secondly, that the line of geographical demarcation is as plain as the chronological; indicating the pre-eminence of the Germanic race in its three great branches: Low (or North) German, High German, and Scandinavian; including the Frankish and the Burgundian (of eastern France), the Norse-Saxon or AngloSaxon of England and the Scottish Lowlands, and the Norman of northern France. Invention-groups follow:

Aerial Navigation-First (hot) air balloon, Montgolfier brothers (French) 1783. First gas balloon, Clark (English), 1783. First successful dirigible, Renard and Krebs (French), 1884. First successful motor-driven aeroplane, Orville and Wilbur Wright (American) patent 1906. First airship in regular passenger service, Count Ferdinand Zeppelin of Baden, 1910.

Agricultural Machines-The ancient Egyptian and Greek ploughs were wooden, the point tipped with iron; and there was no great improvement until the modern plough with mould-board to turn over broken soil was invented in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century: the share being of wrought iron, the mouldboard of wood covered with sheetiron, until James Snede (Scotch), in 1784

invented the castiron mouldboard. The modern American plough patented by Jethro Wood in 1869, had the share, landside, and mould-board of cast iron, each a separate casting; later, of cast steel. The grain-threshing machine was invented by Andrew Meikle (English) in 1788. The first commercially successful grain-harvesting machine was Cyrus B. McCormick's (Scottish-American), 1831; to which he added a self-raker in 1845. Inclined platform reaper by J. S. Marsh, American, in 1858. Self-binder by Jacob Behel, American, 1864. Sulky-plough invented by H. Brown in 1844; but the first practical one by B. Slusser, German-American, in 1868. The roller flour mill, by F. Wegman, American, 1878. Twine binder by M. L. Gorham, American, in 1873. Barbed-wire machine, by Glidden and Vaughn, Americans, in 1874. Rotary disk cultivator, by Mallon, American, in 1878. Steam plough, by W. Fry, American, in 1879. Combined harvester and thresher by Matteson, American, in 1886. Automobile mower, by the Deering Harvester Co., American, in 1901. Gladstone of Kirke, Scotland, had made in 1807, a sidedraught reaper; Robert Salmon of Woburn the same year devised the cutter-bar idea; and Henry Ogle of Remington, England, in 1822 made a cutter-bar with guards; foreshadowing the essential features of the modern reaper.

Automobiles-First steam automobile, by Cugnot (French), 1769. First chain transmission in auto, by G. Gurney, English, in 1829. First gasoline-propelled vehicle, with internal combustion engine, by B. Selden of Rochester, N. Y., patent applied for in 1872. Application of gas engine to vehicle, by Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, working independently of each other, Germans, in 1886. First bicycle, by Blanchard and Megurier (French), in 1779. Safety appliance by Dalzell (Scotch), about 1845. Rear-driven chain safety bicycle, by Geo. W. Marble, American, in 1887. Pneumatic tire for road-wagon, invented by H. W. Thompson, English, in 1843. The mechanical framework of the bicycle was the velocipede of 1690, improved into the celerifer of De Sivrac, French.

Electrical Inventions-The suggestion of the practical use of electricity is in Wm. Gilbert's De Magnete, published in 1600. He was English. The first frictional electricity machine, by Otto von Guericke, a German of Magdeburg, about 1681. The discoverer of conductors and insulation was Stephen Gray, English, who lived

1696-1736. The first to discover that electricity is of two kinds was C. DuFay, French; lived 1696-1739. Leyden jar by van Kleist, 1745, and P. van Musschenbroek, Dutch, 1746. Lightning rod, and identification of lightning as electricity, Benjamin Franklin, American, 1732. Electro-plating, by Luigi Brugnatelli, Gallo-Italian, born at Pavia, 1805. Voltaic pile, Alex. Volta, Gallo-Italian, born at Como, 1745, died 1827. Voltaic arc light, by Sir Humphrey Davy, English, 1808. Storage battery, by Ritter, German, 1803. Electromagnetism, discovered by H. C. Oersted, Dane, 1819. Galvanic battery, by Luigi Galvani, Gallo-Italian, born Bologna, 1737, died 1798. Galvanometer, by J. Schweigger, Bavarian, born 1779, died 1857. Motion of a magnet by electric current, Michael Faraday, English, 1821. Thermoelectricitty proved by Seebeck, German-English, 1821. Principle of electrodynamics discovered by Ampere, French, 1823. Ohm's law of electric circuits, by Geo. S. Ohm, Bavarian, 1826. Magnetoelectric induction, by Faraday, 1831. Electric telegraph invented by S. F. B. Morse, American, 1832; who sent the first wireless telegraphic message across a canal 80 feet wide near Washington, D. C., Dec. 16, 1842, and constructed the first telegraph line, from Baltimore to Washington in 1844. Constant electric battery, and the Daniell cell, by J. F. Daniell, English, in 1836. First electric motor, by M. H. Jacobi, a German in St. Petersburg, in 1839. Induction coil invented by H. D. Ruhmkorff, Hanoverian, in 1851. First practical duplex telegraph, by Stearns, American, about 1855-60. First electric transmission of speech, or telephone, by Phillipp Reis, of Gelnhausen in Hesse, 1860. Atlantic telegraph cable by Cyrus W. Field, American, 1866. Dynamo by coil by I. K. Wilhelm (Sir Wm.) Siemens, of Lenthe, Hanover, but settled in England, in 1866. Ring armature, by Gramme, French, 1868. Electro-magnetic theory of light published by Clerk Maxwell, English, 1873. Quadruplex telegraph, by Thomas A. Edison, American, 1873. Siphon recorder, by Sir William Thomson, English, 1874. Telephone, varying current, by Alex. Graham Bell, a Scot in the U. S., 1876. Though P. Jablochkov, Russian, made the Jablochkoff electric candle, involving two carbon points, it was unsuited to practical use, and rejected in favor of the Brush system of electric lighting, by C. F. Brush, American, 1878. Incandescent lamp with carbon filament, by Edison, put into use 1878. First electric locomotive, by Werner Siemens, brother of Sir William, 1879. Telephone transmitter, by Francis Blake, of