The American Naturalist, 11. köide

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Essex Institute, 1877
 

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Page 215 - paper-philosophers " are under the delusion that physical science can be mastered as literary accomplishments are acquired, but unfortunately it is not so. You may read any quantity of books, and you may be almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don't have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.
Page 274 - The people are somewhat white, they wear apparel, and lie in beds, their weapons are bows, they have emeralds and other jewels, although they esteem none so much ,as turquoises, wherewith they adorn the walls of the porches of their houses, and their apparel and vessels, and they use them instead of money through all the country.
Page 465 - I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved ; and of each page, only here and there a few lines.
Page 212 - Now, in an Englishman's mouth, it generally means that by which we get pudding or praise, or both. I have no doubt that is one meaning of the word utility, but it by no means includes all I mean by utility. I think that knowledge of every kind is useful in proportion as it tends to give people right ideas, which are essential to the foundation of right practice, and to remove wrong ideas, which are the no less essential foundations and fertile mothers of every description of error in practice.
Page 713 - ... colour-variations either to one sex only or to both sexes ; the difference depending on some unknown law, and not being due to natural selection. I have long held this portion of Mr. Darwin's theory to be erroneous ; and have argued that the primary cause of sexual diversity of colour was the need of protection, repressing in the female those bright colours which are normally produced in both sexes by general laws ; and I have attempted to explain many of the more difficult cases on this principle....
Page 7 - After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in Nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural.
Page 444 - The International Exhibition to be held at Paris in 1878 will furnish such an occasion, and it is proposed to invite to that end governmental geological surveys, learned societies and private individuals throughout the world, to send to Paris such collections as will make the geological department of that exhibition as complete as possible. In order to take advantage of the collections which may thus be brought together, it is moreover proposed to convoke an International...
Page 465 - ... circumstances, and the blank intervals between the successive stages as having been of vast duration. But we shall be able to gauge with some security the duration of these intervals by a comparison of the preceding and succeeding organic forms. We must be cautious in attempting to correlate as strictly contemporaneous two formations, which include few identical species, by the general succession of their forms of life.
Page 112 - The Rocky Mountain locust or grasshopper, being the report of proceedings of a conference of the Governors of several Western States and Territories, together with several other gentlemen, held at Omaha, Nebr., on the 25th and 26th days of October, 1876, to consider the locust problem ; also a summary of the best means now known for counteracting the evil.
Page 102 - Barnakles, in the North of England Brant Geese, and in Lancashire Tree Geese...

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