ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE RETIRING PRESIDENT, MAJOR J. W. POWELL.

The world is endowed with abundant life. Living beings have wonderful powers of reproduction. If all the vegetation upon the surface of the earth were destroyed leaving but one young palm, one young oak, and one young pine, and if these were allowed to bear their fruits and every seed permitted to grow and reproduce its kind, in a succession of generations this palm, oak, and pine might live to see their progeny covering the whole earth-reforesting the whole surface of the land, and the younger palms and oaks and pines would stand so dense under the shadow of the taller forests that the world would be a jungle impenetrable to the larger beasts. Such are the powers of reproduction with which palms, oaks, and pines are endowed.

If a barrel of oysters were planted in an estuary of the sea and their progeny preserved in successive generations for ten years the oysterfield thus produced would supply a bounteous repast for every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth.

If in the economy of nature all of the worlds that are catalogued as stars were suddenly placed under the same conditions for the support of life as those existing on the earth, and then the earth were made the nursery of this universe, so that all of its redundant germs could be utilized on the stars, they would all in a few years be clothed with plants and the air and the land and the water of every star would teem with animal life.

It is beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend the powers of biotic reproduction. This marvelous fecundity, especially in the lower forms of life, has played an important part in the evo(297)

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lution of plants and animals, the nature of which stood. Few of these biotic germs reach adult life. cessful passage through the term of life possible to

must be under

For every sucthe individual of each species there are a multitude of failures. The life of the few, and the very few, is secured by the martyrdom of the many, and the very many.

If many are called to life and few are chosen to live, how are the favored few selected? The answer to this question is the modern doctrine of evolution; it is "the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence;" it is the philosophy that Darwin embodies in the phrase "natural selection." Nature gives more lives than she can support. There are more individuals requiring nourishment than there is food. Only those live that obtain sufficient nutriment, and only those live that find a habitat. Of the multitude of germs, some perish on the rocks, some languish in the darkness, some are drowned in the waters, and some are devoured by other living beings. The few live because they fall not on the rocks, but are implanted in the soils; because they are not buried in the darkness, but are bathed in the sunlight; because they are not overwhelmed by deep waters, but are nourished by gentle rains, or because they are not devoured by the hungry, but dwell among the living. The few live because they are the favorites of surrounding circumstances. In the more stately phrase of the philosophy of evolution, they are "adapted to the environment." Evolution, or progress in life, is accomplished among animals or plants by killing the weaker-the less favored--and by saving the stronger and more favored. Many must be killed because there are too many, and so the best only are preserved. Those a little above the average are saved, and this is called "natural selection." But this general statement must be followed a little farther that its deeper significance may be grasped.

The earth as the home of living beings presents an almost infinite variety of conditions, and germs or beings not adapted to one may be adapted to another, so that a great variety of living forms is produced, adapted to a great variety of conditions; and beings are developed to live in air and on the land and in the sea; in polar zones, in temperate lands, and in torrid regions; on the mountain, over the plain, down the valley; in arid lands and in humid lands. The life which teems upon the earth is thus crowded into every available spot; and yet the fountains of life never fail. Every spring sends its stream into the flooded world. There is life

for all the earth, and more life and still more life; forever and forever it comes. Under such conditions of abundance, of wanton superfluity, the new-born plants and animals are ushered into the world to compete with one another for continued existence. It is in this manner that biotic competition arises; it is a struggle for existence where there are too many, where some perish under inexorable conditions. It is thus that the whole universe of life is in

a struggle; all living beings are engaged in a warfare one with another.

Let us look at some of the ways in which this competition is carried on. The plant must have air and water, as its food is the body of the wind and its drink the body of the storm; but food and drink are but the vehicles of life, not plant-life itself; plant; life is sunlight transformed and organized by air-fed tissue. The life of the forest, the meadow, and the mossy bank is drawn from the effulgence woven of the hues of the rainbow in the loom of the orb of day. And it must be said again that the life of the plant is the light of the sun; for this all plants compete, for it is in the loom of the plant that the light of the sun is woven into life. For this light every plant struggles. Toward the fountain of light every plant turns that it may drink, and aloft it lifts its head higher and still higher above its fellows; and abroad it stretches its branches, and athwart the course of the sunbeams it spreads its leaves that it may catch the most of sunlight. The plant that thus lifts its head the highest and spreads its limbs the widest and clothes itself with the densest verdure is the successful competitor. Its prosperity is its neighbors' adversity; its life is its neighbors' death. A shadow is the sword of a great tree, and with this weapon it slays a thousand or a million. The life of one is the death of many. But those that drink from the fountain of life are the best of their race; those that are stricken with the shadow-sword fall because they have less of plant excellence. It is a "survival of the fittest ;' it is "natural selection;" it is "evolution" towards higher life. After vegetal life comes animal life. As air and water are the food of the plant, so the plant is the food of the animal; and as sunlight is the life of the plant, so is the life of the plant the life of the animal. The food is but the vehicle. So animals live on plants, devour their tissues and transmute their vitality; and here another method of natural selection arises. The sweetest and most nutritious plants become the food of animals; those that are bitter, those whose