Considering the parts most affected and the parts least affected, the degree of use is the only cause capable of explaining the conditions. Those parts most active during use are the ones reduced most--viz., the muscles, the retina, optic nerve and dioptric appliances, the lens and vitreous parts. Those organs occupying a more passive position, e. g., the scleral cartilages, have been much less affected. The lens is one of the latest organs affected, not at all during use, possibly because during use it would continuously be in use. It disappears most rapidly after the beginning of absolute disuse both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. All indications point to use and disuse as the effective agents in molding the eye. The process, however, does not give results with mathematical precision. In Typhlichthys subterraneus the pigmented layer is affected differently from that of Amblyopsis. The variable development of the eye muscles in different species would offer another objection if we did not know of the variable condition of these structures in different individuals. Chilton has objected to the application of the Lamarckian factor to explain degeneration, on account of the variable effects of degeneration in various invertebrates. But such differences in the reaction are still less explainable by any of the other theories. THE EVOLUTION AND PRESENT STATUS OF THE AUTOMOBILE. BY WILLIAM BAXTER, JR. In this closing year of a century which is marked by unparalleled advances in science and its applications to the industrial arts, we are very much inclined to take it for granted that none of the inventions that are regarded by us as indicative of the highest order of progressive tendency, could by any possibility have been thought of by our forefathers; and as the automobile is looked upon as an ultra-progressive idea, no one who has not investigated the subject would believe for a moment that its conception could antedate the present generation, much less the present century. The records, however, show that the subject engrossed the attention of inventive minds many hundreds of years ago. In fact, as far back as the beginning of the thirteenth century a Franciscan monk named Roger Bacon prophesied that, the day would come when boats and carriages would be propelled by machinery. [Illustration: FIG. 1. CUGNOT’S STEAM GUN CARRIAGE, MADE IN 1763.] The first authentic record of a self-propelled carriage dates back to the middle of the sixteenth century. The inventor was Johann Haustach, of Nuremburg. The device is described as a chariot propelled by the force of springs, and it is said that it attained a speed of two thousand paces per hour, about one mile and a quarter. Springs have been tried by many inventors since that time, but always without success from the simple fact that the amount of energy that can be stored in a spring is practically insignificant.