My wife and I, having worked a number of years at Florissant,

were very anxious to see the corresponding European locality
for fossil insects
My wife and I, having worked a number of years at Florissant,
were very anxious to see the corresponding European locality
for fossil insects. The opportunity came in 1909, when we were
able to make a short visit to Switzerland after attending the
Darwin celebration at Cambridge. We went first to Zurich, where
in a large hall in the University or Polytechnicum we saw
Heer"s collections. A bust of Heer stands in one corner, while
one end of the room is covered by a large painting by Professor
Holzhalb, representing a scene at Oeningen as it may have
appeared in Miocene times, showing a lake with abundant
vegetation on its shores, and appropriate animals in the
foreground. Numerous glass-covered cases contain the
magnificent series of fossils, both plants and animals. Dr.
Albert Heim, professor of geology and director of the
Geological Museum, was most kind in showing us all we wanted to
see, and giving advice concerning the precise locality of the
fossil beds. Professor Heim is an exceedingly active and able
geologist, but neither he nor any one else has continued the
work of Heer, whose collections remain apparently as he left
them. The 384 supposedly new insects are still undescribed,
with a few possible exceptions. I had time only to critically
examine the bees, of which I found three ostensibly new forms.
Of these, one turned out to be a wasp,[2] one was
unrecognizable, but the third was a valid new species, and was
published later in The Entomologist. There can be no doubt that
Heer was too ready to distinguish species of insects in fossils
which were so poorly preserved as to be practically worthless,
consequently part of those he published and many of those he
left unpublished will have to be rejected. Nevertheless, the
Oeningen materials are extremely valuable, both for the number
of species and the good preservation of some of them. All
should be carefully reexamined, and the entomologist who will
give his time to this work will certainly be rewarded by many
interesting discoveries.

As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance;

I will take the institution called the private house or home;
the shell and organ of the family
As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance;
I will take the institution called the private house or home;
the shell and organ of the family. We will consider cosmic
and political tendencies simply as they strike that ancient and
unique roof. Very few words will suffice for all I have to say
about the family itself. I leave alone the speculations about
its animal origin and the details of its social reconstruction;
I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence.
It is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so)
a trap for mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge
fact can any one contrive to talk of 'free love'; as if love
were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune.
Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from
the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave.
Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he 'drew an angel down'
and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string.
These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake
consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly
plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover;
he is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates
the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual;
the cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph.
Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation;
and thence arises the family in its full educational sense.